Protesters took to Israel’s streets for what they called a “day of disruption” on Wednesday, denouncing the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists for an offensive that has drawn global condemnation and fuelled fears in Israel that it could endanger hostages still held in Gaza.
The demonstrations, the latest of their kind to roil Israel, accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet of failing to secure a ceasefire deal and instead intensifying an invasion that hospitals in Gaza say in its initial stages is already accelerating a rise in fatalities. “We have to take extreme action so that someone will remember. There’s no such thing as a state abandoning its citizens,” Yael Kuperman, a protester near the Knesset, told Israeli public broadcaster Kan. Strikes hit both Gaza City and southern Gaza as Israel urges evacuation
Meanwhile, hospital officials told The Associated Press at least 24 people were killed in strikes overnight into Wednesday.
Nasser Hospital said it received 10 bodies, including one aid-seeker in Rafah and a child killed by a strike in southern Gaza. Shifa Hospital said the bodies of 14 people, including two children and four women, arrived on Wednesday, while Al-Quds Hospital said it received another person killed by Israeli strikes. Israel says that Gaza City — the largest Palestinian city in either the besieged strip or the occupied West Bank — remains a Hamas stronghold above what military officials claim is a vast underground tunnel network, even after raids earlier in the war. Israel has intensified air and ground assaults on the outskirts of Gaza City, particularly in western neighbourhoods where people are being driven to flee toward the coast, according to humanitarian groups that coordinate assistance for the displaced. Site Management Cluster, one such group, said on Wednesday that families were trapped by the prohibitively high cost of moving, logistical hurdles and a lack of places to go. “Palestinians are also reluctant to move due to the fear of not being able to return or exhaustion from repeated displacement,” it said. Hospitals report dozens killed as international outrage grows
The twin threats of combat and famine, Palestinians and aid workers say, are only growing more acute for families in Gaza City, the vast majority of whom have reported being displaced multiple times during the 23-month war.
Hospital officials and Gaza’s Health Ministry said Wednesday the death toll kept climbing, with people killed in airstrikes while trying to reach aid, or from hunger. The ministry said 113 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday — more than half in Gaza City — over the past
24 hours.