Hamas tunnels in Gaza's 'Elite Quarter' are wiped out in huge fireball as Israel expands ground offensive and orders tens of thousands more people to leave their homes
By James Reynolds
Daily Mail
Dec 22, 2023
Footage showed the 'Elite Quarter' of Gaza City levelled by explosions on Thursday
Israeli special forces claim to have destroyed a large network of strategic underground tunnels operated by Hamas in Gaza.
Dramatic footage released by the IDF appeared to show a large explosion in the 'Elite Quarter' of Gaza City, north Gaza Strip, on Thursday.
The military said it had 'exposed the terrorist infrastructure' under the city late Wednesday, revealing 'bureaus belonging to Hamas' senior military and political leadership'.
'The network of tunnels was destroyed in a controlled manner,' the IDF said in a statement shared on Telegram with the footage.
The claims came as an in-depth investigation by The Washington Post published Thursday concluded there was 'no immediate' evidence rooms connecting the city's al-Shifa hospital to tunnels were used for military purposes by Hamas.
The death toll in Gaza surpassed 20,000, health officials said today, as Israeli bombing over the besieged strip continues unabated - and amid growing calls from pro-Palestinian protestors and the families of Israeli hostages for a ceasefire.
Some 85 per cent of the 2.3mn population of Gaza has now been displaced by Israel's bombing campaign, with civilians ordered in October to evacuate the north and head south before being told to evacuate the south. Charities warn there are fewer and fewer safe places for residents to turn.
Despite the calls for peace, Israel has indicated it plans to expand its ground offensive. The military said late Thursday it is sending more ground forces, including combat engineers, to Khan Younis to target Hamas above ground and in tunnels.
On Friday, the IDF ordered tens of thousands of residents to leave their homes in Burej, an urban refugee camp, and surrounding communities, also in the south.
Thermal imaging from above showed the explosions detonating yesterday
According to Israel's military, Gaza City is built upon extensive networks of tunnels used by Hamas - evidence, it says, that Gaza's de facto government is using human shields. Hamas denies the accusation.
Both the US and Israel have claimed al-Shifa, the city's largest hospital, is being used as cover for Hamas bases underground. Following raids on the hospital last month - and the evacuation of patients - Israel has begun cautious movements through tunnels discovered around the centre.
Israel shared videos last month purporting to reveal small arms caches stashed in the hospital. Hundreds were then forced to evacuate on November 18 after over a week spent fully securing the building.
Progress is expected to be slow as the IDF moves through cautiously with robots and dogs, anticipating traps set up by Hamas.
However, an investigation by The Washington Post shared on Thursday, based on open-source visuals and satellite imagery, found little evidence to back up Israel's 'remarkably specific' claims about al-Shifa.
The Post's analysis claimed that 'the rooms connected to the tunnel network discovered by IDF troops showed no immediate evidence of military use by Hamas', that 'none of the five hospital buildings identified by Hagari appeared to be connected to the tunnel network' and that 'there is no evidence that the tunnels could be accessed from inside hospital wards'.
Israel has launched raids on the hospital, claiming that it is being used as a base for Hamas. Under international law, the hospital would lose its special protections if found to be used for significant purposes. Depending on the context, the retrieval of small arms may not be enough to ascertain whether the building was being used in this way.
The Palestinian death toll in Gaza has now surpassed 20,000, according to health officials, the latest indication of the staggering cost of the war as Israel expanded its ground offensive and ordered tens of thousands more people to leave their homes.
The deaths, amounting to nearly 1% of the territory's prewar population, are just one measure of the devastation wrought by the conflict that over 11 weeks has displaced nearly 85% of Gaza's people and leveled wide swaths of the tiny coastal enclave.
A view of damage after Israeli army hit the pediatric department of Nasser Hospital in Gaza's Khan Younis city on December 17, 2023
Many patients receiving treatment were evacuated from hospital after an Israeli airstrike
More than half a million people in Gaza - a quarter of the population - are starving, according to a report Thursday from the United Nations and other agencies describing the crisis caused by Israel's bombardment and siege on the territory in response to Hamas' October 7 attack.
Chiara Saccardi, Regional Head of Action Against Hunger in the Middle East, said in a statement shared with MailOnline: 'The combination of incessant shelling, shortages of food, water, fuel, and the inability of humanitarian agencies to fully operate in Gaza has caused this desperate situation.
'The UN and humanitarian organisations have been warning for weeks about the need to remove barriers to aid entering Gaza to avoid this reality.
'Everything we are doing is insufficient to meet the needs of two million people. It is difficult to find flour and rice, and people have to wait hours to access latrines and wash themselves.
'We are experiencing an emergency like I have never seen before,' adds Noelia Monge, Head of Emergencies for Action Against Hunger, who recently returned from the region.
According to the charity, 'virtually every household in Gaza skips meals every day. Four out of five households in the north, and half of those displaced in the south, go days without eating a single thing. This situation could be reversed immediately with increased humanitarian access.'
'Nasma' a humanitarian and development aid worker working with Mercy Corps in Gaza, told MailOnline: 'The situation has become catastrophic. I don't think I've ever seen something like this before, or ever imagined that we would get to this point.
'Since the ceasefire or the pause stopped, it has been crazy. It's been much worse honestly than before… like before it was everything was happening mostly in the north of Gaza but I live in the south of Gaza and that's where everything has been happening.
'After this pause ended, after it ended… there were at least, on that day, I think it was Friday at least, three different bombings and two of them were in the refugee camp.
'And because we live near a hospital, we hear all the ambulances, all the screams and everything. It was horrible.
'It really was seeing people running to the hospital to check on their families and everything and then seeing trucks loaded with people who were injured. It's catastrophic, honestly.'
'Nowadays… people won't be lucky enough to get a load of bread at the end of the day. And then there are long queues everywhere, like queues for water, only a couple of functioning water plants,' she added.
'Our lives have really just been queues for the past days since this started. And the queues are getting longer and longer. There are queues for gas, cooking gas, and then are are queues for fuel. Because cars are even now running on corn oil, which is horrible because everything is polluted. You can't breathe the air outside.'
Tents and shelters used by displaced Palestinians stand at the yard of Al Shifa hospital during the Israeli ground operation around the hospital, in Gaza City November 12, 2023
Israel claimed to have found a tunnel near the hospital which they say supports their claims the hospital is sat on top of a Hamas stronghold
Despite the emergency, Israel has resisted international pressure to scale back its offensive and has said it would press on until Hamas, the group that has ruled Gaza for 16 years, has been destroyed.
The military has said that months of fighting lie ahead in southern Gaza, an area packed with the vast majority of the enclave's 2.3 million people, many of whom were ordered to flee combat in the north in earlier stages of the war.
Since then, evacuation orders have pushed displaced civilians into ever-smaller areas of the south as troops focus on the city of Khan Younis, Gaza's second-largest.
The military said late Thursday that it is sending more ground forces, including combat engineers, to Khan Younis to target Hamas militants above ground and in tunnels.
On Friday, the military ordered tens of thousands of residents to leave their homes in Burej, an urban refugee camp, and surrounding communities, within the territory that Israel originally told people to flee to.
The air and ground campaign also continued in the north, even as Israel says it is in the final stages of clearing out Hamas militants there.
Mustafa Abu Taha, a Palestinian farm worker, said ground battles and airstrikes have continued in his hard-hit Gaza City neighborhood of Shijaiyah, adding that many areas have become inaccessible because of massive destruction from airstrikes.
'They are hitting anything moving,' he said of Israeli forces.
In the city of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, an airstrike on a house killed six people, including an infant, according to Associated Press journalists who saw the bodies at a hospital. Rafah is one of the few places in Gaza not under evacuation orders, but has been targeted in Israeli strikes almost every day.
Meanwhile, phone and internet services were gradually being restored late Thursday, after the latest communications blackout of 35 hours.
Repeated cuts in communications have hampered aid deliveries at a time of unprecedented humanitarian needs in Gaza.
The hunger eclipsed even the near-famines of recent years in Afghanistan and Yemen, according to Thursday's report, which warned that the risk of famine is 'increasing each day,' blaming the hunger on insufficient aid entering Gaza.
'It doesn't get any worse,' said Arif Husain, chief economist for the U.N.'s World Food Program. 'I have never seen something at the scale that is happening in Gaza. And at this speed.'
The war has also pushed Gaza's health sector into collapse.
Only nine of its 36 health facilities are still partially functioning, all located in the south, according to the World Health Organization.
The agency reported soaring rates of infectious diseases in Gaza, including a five-fold increase in diarrhea, particularly among young children, compared to pre-war figures. It said there's been a rise in upper respiratory infections, meningitis, skin rashes, scabies, lice and chickenpox.
'With the health system on its knees, those facing the deadly combination of hunger and disease are left with few options,' it said.
A Palestinian family walks out of the Jenin camp heading to a safer place as the Israeli forces raid on Jenin refugee camp continues for a third consecutive day, 14 December 2023
An Israeli military vehicle is seen amid tear gas on a street as the raid on Jenin refugee camp enters a third consecutive day, near the West Bank city of Jenin, 14 December 2023
An Israeli military helicopter flies over the fighting area east of the city of Khan Yunis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, on December 16, 2023
WHO relief workers reported 'unbearable' scenes in two hospitals they visited in northern Gaza: Bedridden patients with untreated wounds cry out for water, the few remaining doctors and nurses have no supplies, and bodies are lined up in the courtyard.
Israeli forces have raided a series of health facilities in the north in recent weeks, detaining men for interrogation and expelling others.
On Thursday, troops stormed the Palestinian Red Crescent's ambulance center in the Jabaliya refugee camp, taking away paramedics and ambulance crews, the group said. On Friday, the Red Crescent said the military released some of the paramedics, including women, but eight remained in detention with their whereabouts not known.
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