Sawt Falasteen - UN shelter hit by deadly shelling, hospitals surrounded in south Gaza

The Israeli army says it has "encircled" southern Gaza's biggest city, the birthplace of Hamas's Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, accused of being the mastermind of the October 7 attacks that sparked the war.

Footage released by the military showed Israeli soldiers engaged in urban combat in Khan Yunis amid ruined buildings. Large clouds of black smoke billowed over the city during Israeli bombardments, AFP photos showed.

Tank shelling on a United Nations shelter in the city killed at least nine people, said the Gaza head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"Two tank rounds hit building that shelters 800 people -- reports now 9 dead and 75 injured," Thomas White, UNRWA's Gaza director, said on X, formerly Twitter.

Teams from the UNRWA and the World Health Organization were trying to reach the shelter, which has been blocked for two days, White said.

Heavy fighting was meanwhile reported close to hospitals in the city, including Al-Aqsa, Nasser and Al-Amal, with reports of Palestinians trying to flee, said UN humanitarian agency OCHA.

"No-one can enter or exit (Nasser Hospital) due to ongoing bombardments," OCHA said, citing medics who also reported that staff were digging graves on the grounds of the facility "due to the large numbers of fatalities anticipated".

OCHA said about 18,000 people uprooted from their homes were reported to be at Nasser Hospital alone.

An AFP journalist saw Palestinians who fled Khan Yunis arriving in the southern town of Rafah on the backs of pick-up trucks along with their belongings.

Gaza hospitals had already received the bodies of at least 125 people killed overnight, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.

"Dozens of Israeli tanks are surrounding Nasser Hospital from all sides, except for a corridor for displaced people to leave," the Hamas government said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Al-Amal hospital was also surrounded.

- 'Buffer zone' -

The Gaza war began with Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.

In response, Israel has carried out a relentless military offensive that has killed at least 25,700 people in Gaza, about 70 percent of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under mounting pressure from the Israeli public to end the war.

That pressure intensified after 24 soldiers were killed Monday in the army's deadliest single day since it launched ground operations in Gaza.

The military said 21 of them were reservists killed "when a squad of terrorists surprised the force" with rocket-propelled grenade fire.

Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said "they fell in battle near the border fence during a defensive operation in the area separating the Israeli communities from Gaza".

Citing Israeli officials, the New York Times said the operation was to demolish part of a Palestinian neighbourhood as part of a plan to create a "buffer zone" inside Gaza along the Israeli border.

But in an address to the Israeli parliament Wednesday, Netanyahu pledged the conflict would continue until the "aggression and evil" of Hamas were destroyed.

"This is a war for our home," he said.

"It must end, and it will end, with the eradication of the aggression and evil of the new Nazis," he added, comparing Hamas to the German regime that slaughtered six million European Jews during World War II.

- 'Nothing to eat' -

In Gaza City, people displaced by the war said they were stuck in a new conflict zone without provisions.

"They besieged us in the camp and brought us here, and even here, the shelling continued," Umm Dahud al-Kafarna, originally from Beit Hanun, told AFPTV.

"They have besieged us for six days, leaving us with nothing to eat or drink while bombing us from the air, sea and tanks."

Israeli media reported that a far-right fringe group had attempted to disrupt aid deliveries at the Kerem Shalom border crossing to Gaza, but it was unclear whether their protest caused any delays.

US President Joe Biden's Middle East envoy Brett McGurk is in the region for talks aimed at brokering a new deal to free the remaining captives in exchange for a pause in fighting.

A Palestinian source familiar with the talks said a Hamas delegation had arrived in Cairo on Tuesday to meet Egypt's intelligence chief and discuss new ceasefire proposals.

A source close to Hamas told AFP that the talks in the Egyptian capital were continuing on Wednesday.

- Wider escalation -

The Gaza war has spurred fears of a wider escalation, with a surge in violence involving Iran-backed Hamas allies across the Middle East.

It came after the US military said it carried out strikes on Iran-backed groups in both Iraq and Yemen overnight.

In Yemen, the US military said it destroyed two Huthi anti-ship missiles overnight, which had posed an "imminent threat".

It was the latest in a series of strikes by the United States and Britain aimed at reducing the Huthis' ability to target shipping, which they have done since November in support of Palestinians in Gaza.

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D.Khalil--SF-PST