GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israeli forces bombed and battled Hamas in Gaza City on Wednesday as tens of thousands of Palestinians scrambled for a safe haven after the army issued an evacuation order for a vast swathe in the territory’s south.
Apache helicopters and Israeli quadcopter drones flew above Gaza City’s Shujaiya district as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets, said AFP reporters.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a US media report saying his generals were urging a Gaza truce even with Hamas undefeated, stressing on Tuesday that “this will not happen.”
Military chief Herzi Halevi meanwhile said Israel is engaged in “a long campaign” to destroy Hamas over the October 7 attack and to bring home the hostages held by Palestinian militants.
The United Nations warned that the almost nine-months-old war had “unleashed a maelstrom of human misery” and that the latest evacuation order had plunged yet more Palestinians into “an abyss of suffering.”
Ten days after Netanyahu said the war’s “intense phase” was winding down, the Israeli military again rained down air strikes and artillery fire on militants in the Shujaiya district.
The air force struck “over 50 terror infrastructure sites” across Gaza in 24 hours while ground troops “eliminated terrorists,” located tunnels and found weapons including AK-47 assault rifles, the military said.
The Israeli army — which issued an evacuation order for Shujaiya a week ago — on Sunday did the same for a larger area near Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south, raising fears of renewed heavy battles there.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have again taken to the road there, many bundling their scant belongings on top of cars or donkey carts as they sought safety elsewhere in the bombed-out wasteland.
The UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said 250,000 people had been impacted by the latest evacuation order that covers southern areas bordering Israel and Egypt.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the order covers 117 square kilometers (45 square miles), or “about a third of the Gaza Strip, making it the largest such order since October.”
The UN humanitarian coordinator for Gaza, Sigrid Kaag, told the UN Security Council in New York on Tuesday that the war had now displaced 80 percent of Gaza’s population.
She also said not enough aid was reaching the besieged territory and that crossings must be reopened, particularly to southern Gaza, to avert a humanitarian disaster.
“Palestinian civilians in Gaza have been plunged into an abyss of suffering, their home lives shattered, their lives upended,” she said. “The war has not merely created the most profound of humanitarian crises. It has unleashed a maelstrom of human misery.”
Amid the war, siege and mass displacement, more than 150,000 people have contracted skin diseases in the squalid conditions, said the World Health Organization.
Wafaa Elwan, a Palestinian mother of seven who now lives in a tent city by the sea, said: “We sleep on the ground, on sand where worms come out underneath us.”
She said her five-year-old son, much of whose body was covered in rashes and welts, “can’t sleep through the night because he can’t stop scratching his body.”
The bloodiest ever Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive since then has killed at least 37,925 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The Israeli military said Wednesday that “operational activities continue throughout the Gaza Strip.”
The Gaza civil defense agency said seven people were killed when a strike hit a family house north of Gaza City.
Another strike killed three people in a car at Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Deir Al-Balah area, said an AFP reporter.
Air strikes also hit homes in Rafah, according to Gaza’s government media office.
The New York Times has quoted Israeli security officials as saying top generals see a truce as the best way to secure the release of the remaining hostages, even if that meant not achieving all of the war goals.
Netanyahu, who heads a government including hard-line right-wing parties, strongly rejected this on Tuesday and vowed Israel would not give in to the “winds of defeatism.”
“The war will end once Israel achieves all of its objectives, including the destruction of Hamas and the release of all of our hostages,” he said.
Heavy fighting rocks Gaza as thousands on the move again
https://arab.news/4hkcr
Heavy fighting rocks Gaza as thousands on the move again
- Apache helicopters and Israeli quadcopter drones flew above Gaza City’s Shujaiya district as heavy gunfire echoed through the streets
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected a US media report saying his generals were urging a Gaza truce even with Hamas undefeated
Prime minister’s visit to southern Lebanon promotes trust in state
- Temporary market officially opened by Nawaf Salam during 2-day tour
BEIRUT: Nearly 15 months on from Israeli airstrikes which reduced Nabatieh’s historic market to rubble during the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, local civic leaders have stepped in to provide relief.
The war, which ended with a ceasefire in November 2024, left the southern Lebanese city’s centuries-old souk — a key commercial hub — devastated, displacing shop owners and crippling local trade.
In the absence of swift rebuilding by Hezbollah, which many affected residents had relied on, a group of non-partisan civic figures from Nabatieh launched an initiative about six months ago to establish a temporary alternative market.
The new market was officially opened on Sunday by Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam during a two-day tour of southern Lebanon.
The visit began in Tyre and Naqoura, continued through Bint Jbeil and Aitaroun, and included stops in devastated border villages before reaching Hasbaya and Marjayoun, and finally concluding in Nabatieh.
Nabatieh’s market has long been one of the region’s most important commercial landmarks.
It served as a vital transit point for traders moving goods between Syria, Lebanon, and Jerusalem in the early 20th century.
It evolved over time into a bustling local marketplace central to the city’s economy and daily life.
The initiative highlights growing frustration among some residents over unfulfilled promises for reconstruction aid from Hezbollah following the conflict’s destruction.
Salam’s opening of the temporary facility underscores government efforts to support community-led recovery amid broader rebuilding challenges in the war-affected region.
The temporary market aims to restore essential commercial activity while permanent reconstruction is underway.
Mahdi Sadeq, executive director of project overseer Nabatieh Emergency Rescue Service Association, told Arab News: “The project is a joint initiative by business people, self-employed professionals, and financiers, some of whom belong to non-Muslim sects.”
Sadeq, who is the son of Sheikh Abdul Hussein Sadeq, Nabatieh’s imam, added: “The project’s significance lies in the fact that it is not tied to any form of patronage that would burden traders with political loyalties.
“This initiative brings 85 owners of destroyed shops, many in dire economic conditions, back to work without imposing any obligations on them — unlike partisan grants.
“It is an initiative that saves the historic market, restores the pulse of life to the people, and sets us on the path to recovery.”
Sadeq added that the importance of the initiative was the fact that Nabatieh “has a moderate and independent religious” character “that has asserted its presence among all forces.”
He said: “No one has been able to eliminate it: not the Palestinian factions that were present in southern Lebanon in the 1960s and 1970s, nor the Lebanese partisan forces that came afterwards. It has remained centrist and has enjoyed broad popular support.
“If people in the south are left without pressure being exerted on them, they are eager to be embraced by the state. The state is the foundation, and everything else is the exception.
“At the same time, there is a degree of caution, because the state has yet to assert its presence after the war and has, in a way, passed judgment on people in advance. Had it moved quickly to take the initiative, it would have reaped greater dividends.”
Architect Samir Ali Ahmad, who is in charge of the implementation of the project, said that “the alternative market was built on Waqf-owned land donated by the imam of Nabatieh for a limited period of no more than four or five years, until the main market is rebuilt.”
Ali Ahmad added: “The new market consists of prefabricated rooms. It also includes courtyards and a Khan-style market complex featuring cafes, restaurants, rest areas, playgrounds, and a parking lot.
“Once the project is completed, these rooms can be donated to the Lebanese army or to the poorest families.
“This market will enable residents to remain on their land and secure their livelihoods without being forced into displacement.”
Engineer Lina Ezzeddine, who contributed to the project through fundraising efforts, said: “Priority was given to destitute individuals who were unable to fend for themselves.”
She noted that “some merchants had succeeded in rebuilding their shops, others had moved to different locations, while some had died of heart attacks due to the shock of what had occurred.”
Ezzeddine stressed that “donors did not consider the political affiliations of the merchants.”
She added: “The only condition was that no political party be allowed to interfere. And, indeed, no party did.
“The people have endured many tragedies, and the prime minister’s participation in the opening of the alternative market sends a clear message that the state stands with them.
“The people of the south love their land and are deeply attached to it. How could they not stand with the state?”
Salam’s visit, which has been marked by numerous public gatherings and meetings with local figures, reflects the people’s renewed support of the state following a devastating war that was the result of Hezbollah’s unilateral move to take decisions on war and peace out of the hands of official authorities.
The scenes witnessed during Salam’s tour of the south have carried exceptional significance.
The scattering of roses and rice, the ululations that have welcomed him, and the banners bearing welcoming phrases to “the state of law and citizenship” indicate the desire of the people of the south to return to the protection of state institutions.
An official source said that they had recognized that “the state is the only safe haven, while all slogans raised outside its framework have brought nothing but destruction, poverty, and displacement.”
Salam reiterated that “the state’s presence in the area is a message in the face of this massive destruction, to which we will never surrender.”
He added: “The state is here to stay, not to visit and leave. The state is responsible for every southern village and for all people, without discrimination.
“The cohesion of southern villages, regardless of their affiliations, protects the entire region.
“The government will continue to exert relief, reconstruction, and economic recovery efforts. The path to recovery and reconstruction is proceeding within an integrated framework.”
Salam said the state’s presence was “a clear message in the face of immense destruction.”
On Saturday, the first day of his tour, Salam announced that $360 million had been secured to help rebuild areas in southern Lebanon, adding that the government would boost reconstruction projects once funding was ensured.
