Israel has widened its ground offensive in Gaza as its military made an “urgent appeal” to Palestinians living in the north of the territory to evacuate to the south, away from the centre of the fighting.
The call came as international aid groups stepped up their demands for a pause in the fighting, amid increasing alarm at the heavy toll Israel’s bombardment is inflicting on the civilian population of the strip.
In a call with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, US president Joe Biden emphasised the need to “immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance” to civilians in Gaza, the White House said.
Daniel Hagari, Israel Defense Forces spokesman, said Israel was “advancing through the stages of the war, according to our plan” and “gradually expanding our ground operations”. He added that “dozens of terrorists” had been killed during attacks in Gaza on Sunday.
Speaking on Sunday night, he also repeated earlier calls for the population to evacuate to areas closer to the border with Egypt. “Today we emphasise: this is an urgent call,” he said.
But aid groups say the movement of thousands of people from their homes is exacerbating Gaza’s humanitarian crisis. UNRWA, the main UN agency providing relief in the territory, said thousands of desperate Palestinians were breaking into its warehouses to seize wheat flour and other staples, in a sign that civil order was starting to break down.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies also said it was “deeply alarmed” by reports that medical teams at Al-Quds hospital in Gaza had been told to leave the facility immediately.
“Evacuating patients, including those in intensive care, on life-support and babies in incubators, is close to, if not impossible in the current situation,” the IFRC said. “Our teams also report violent attacks and shelling very close to the hospital, further endangering people.”
An IDF spokesman declined to comment, saying only that the hospital was located in a part of Gaza that it had called on people to leave.
Israel has been bombarding Gaza for three weeks since the Hamas attack on the country on October 7 in which at least 1,400 Israelis were killed — the deadliest day in the nation’s 75-year history. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages, both civilians and soldiers, whom it continues to hold.
On Sunday the Hamas-controlled health ministry said the death toll in Gaza since the start of the Israeli offensive had risen to 8,005 Palestinians with 20,242 injured.
Israel dispatched troops and tanks into Gaza on Friday night, accompanying the operation with what the UN described as the “most intense Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling” since the start of the war.
The IDF said on Sunday that its fighter jets had attacked more than 450 military targets belonging to Hamas throughout the Gaza Strip over the previous 24 hours, including operational command centres, observation posts and anti-tank missile launching posts.
Sunday also saw an escalation in rocket fire from Lebanon, including projectiles that reached deeper into northern Israel than at any point since the outbreak of hostilities.
Three rockets were fired at the area just north of the Sea of Galilee, with subsequent barrages targeting Israeli towns further west, closer to the Israel-Lebanon frontier, according to Israel’s military.
International concern about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and the many civilian casualties of Israel’s offensive is rising.
Israeli authorities have been criticised for blocking most humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, allowing in only a small number of trucks each day, which the UN and other agencies said was inadequate for the 2.3mn people affected.
A UN spokesman said 47 truckloads had entered on Sunday, the most in a single day since October 21, and making a total of 131 since that date. That is down from 500 consignments daily before October 7.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said thousands of families in Gaza were “sleeping in makeshift shelters or out in the open with little food and water”. It said hospitals were on the verge of collapse and wastewater plants were no longer functioning.
Even Israel’s closest allies have expressed misgivings. US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US was pressing Israel “to make sure to distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian people”.
“We do not stand for the killing of innocent people, whether it be Palestinians, Israelis or otherwise,” he told CBS News.
In his call with Netanyahu, Biden reiterated Israel’s right to defend its citizens, underscoring “the need to do so in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law that prioritises the protection of civilians”, the White House said.
Sullivan also told CBS that Palestinians needed to be able to see “a political horizon”, with “two states for two peoples”.
Biden has called on Congress to approve new funding for Israel, as part of a $106bn package including aid for Ukraine and other national security needs.
However, Mike Johnson, the new Speaker of the US House of Representatives, told Fox News on Sunday that he expected the chamber to pass “a standalone Israel funding bill” this week. The Louisiana Republican, has proposed an Israel-only package worth $14.5bn.
Médecins Sans Frontières, the medical humanitarian organisation, said northern Gaza was being “razed to the ground, while the whole strip is being hit and civilians have no place to take shelter”.
It added: “The international community must take stronger action to urge Israel to stop the bloodshed.”
But Colonel Elad Goren, a senior officer at Cogat, the Israeli military body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, disputed international aid groups’ descriptions of the situation in Gaza.
He said there was enough food in Gaza for “weeks to come”, that medical supplies were still readily available, and that water was “fully accessible”, primarily in southern Gaza.
“These aren’t the normal levels [of water for Gaza],” he said, “but it answers basic humanitarian needs.” He added that Israel was planning to “dramatically increase” the amount of humanitarian assistance allowed into Gaza from Egypt in the coming week.
In a call on Sunday, Biden and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi “committed to the significant acceleration and increase of assistance flowing into Gaza beginning today and then continuously,” the White House said.
The two leaders also discussed the importance of ensuring that Palestinians in Gaza were not displaced to Egypt or any other nation, a readout of the call said.
