ISRAEL launched heavy strikes across central and southern Gaza overnight and into New Year Monday after broadening its offensive against Hamas to more areas where the military had told Palestinians to seek shelter earlier in the war.
Residents reported heavy bombing in the built-up Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, and in the southern cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, areas where tens of thousands have sought refuge as much of northern Gaza was pounded to rubble.
“It was a night of hell. We haven’t seen such bombing since the start of the war,” said Rami Abu Mosab, speaking from the Bureij camp, where he has been sheltering since fleeing his home in northern Gaza.
He said warplanes flew overhead and gunfire and explosions echoed from the eastern edge of the camp which, like others in Gaza, houses refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation and their descendants and now resembles other densely populated neighborhoods.
A home near Abu Mosab’s shelter was hit, but no one was able to reach the area, he said. Mobile phone and internet service was down for several hours before being gradually restored on Wednesday, the latest of several such outages that have complicated rescue efforts.
With much of northern Gaza leveled, Palestinians fear a similar fate awaits other areas, including Khan Younis, where Israeli forces launched ground operations in early December, and a cluster of built-up refugee camps in central Gaza where the focus has shifted this week.
The military’s latest evacuation orders cover an area of central Gaza that was home to nearly 90,000 people before the war and now shelters more than 61,000 displaced people, mostly from the north, according to the U.N. humanitarian office.
