CAIRO (Dispatches) --
Israeli tanks thrust deeper on Monday into two north Gaza towns and a historic refugee camp, trapping around 100,000 civilians, the Palestinian emergency service said.
The Gaza Strip’s health ministry said at least 19 people were martyred by Israeli airstrikes and bombardment on Monday, 13 of them in the north of the devastated coastal territory.
The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said around 100,000 people were marooned in Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun without medical or food supplies.
The emergency service said its operations had come to a halt because of the three-week Israeli assault into the north.
Talks led by the U.S., Egypt and Qatar to broker a ceasefire resumed on Sunday after multiple abortive attempts, with Egypt’s president proposing an initial two-day truce to exchange four Israeli captives of Hamas for some Palestinian prisoners, to be followed by talks within 10 days on a permanent ceasefire.
Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday the latest meetings in Doha focused on a new outline that takes into account previous proposals and regional developments.
He said mediators would resume talks in coming days “in a continued attempt to advance a deal”, without elaborating.
To date, Israel has repeatedly said the war will go on until Hamas is eradicated while the
resistance movement has ruled out end to fighting until Zionist forces leave Gaza.
Gaza’s war has kindled wider conflict in the Middle East, raising concern about global oil supplies, with Israel carrying out bombings across Lebanon and sending forces into its south. It has also triggered rare direct clashes with Iran.
North Gaza’s three major hospitals, whose officials refused Israel’s orders to evacuate, said they were hardly operating. At least two had been damaged by Israeli fire during the assault and run out of medical, food and fuel stocks.
At least one doctor, a nurse and two child patients had died in those hospitals due to a lack of treatment in the past week.
North Gaza residents said Zionist forces were besieging schools and other shelters housing displaced families, ordering them out before rounding up men and pushing women and children to leave the area for Gaza City and points in the south.
Only a few families headed toward southern Gaza as the majority preferred to relocate temporarily in Gaza City, fearing they could otherwise never regain access to their homes.
Some said they had written their death notices in case they died from the constant bombardment.
“While the world is busy with Lebanon and new nonsense talk about a few days of ceasefire (in Gaza), the Israeli occupation is wiping out north Gaza and displacing its people,” a resident of Jabalia told Reuters by a chat app.
North Gaza was the first part of the enclave to be hammered by Israel’s ground invasion, with intensive bombing largely flattening towns.
Nevertheless, Hamas-led resistance fighters continue to attack Israeli forces in hit-and-run operations.
The death toll from Israel’s air and ground onslaught in Gaza has reached 43,020, the Gaza health ministry said in an update on Monday.