Gaza war: Nine Palestinians killed in Israeli attack on UN shelter as forces push into centre of Khan Younis

As Israeli forces continued their push into the centre of Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, a UN agency said at least nine Palestinians were killed and 75 injured on Wednesday in an Israeli attack on a training centre in the city designated as a shelter.

In a post on the social media platform X, Thomas White, director of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said nine people were reported dead and 75 injured after two tank rounds hit a building sheltering 800 people.

UNRWA commissioner-general Philippe Lazzarini said the training centre was a compound clearly marked as a UN facility and its co-ordinates were shared with Israeli authorities. “Once again a blatant disregard of basic rules of war,” he said on X.

The Israeli army announced on Tuesday that it had completed laying siege to Khan Younis, where it believes Hamas leaders are hiding and hostages are being held, and had ordered residents to leave the areas of fighting.

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Palestinian officials accused Israel of encircling two hospitals in the city, preventing patients from entering the facilities. Israel has accused Hamas of utilising hospitals as command centres and holding hostages in them.

The Israeli military hopes to complete its operation in Khan Younis in the next few days, leaving the southern city of Rafah on the Egyptian border as the last remaining area in which Hamas has a significant armed presence that hasn’t been engaged by the Israeli military in the war.

More than 25,500 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel began its operations there, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Israel says 1,200 people were killed and 240 kidnapped and taken to Gaza when Hamas-led militants stormed across the border on October 7th.

Italy will provide hospital treatment for 100 Palestinian children from Gaza after transporting them by plane and ship in an operation to be launched in the next few days.

Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, on Wednesday: “The war must end with the eradication of the new Nazis,” in a reference to Hamas.

[ Israel-Hamas war: What is the two-state solution to the conflict in Gaza and is it possible? ]

Hundreds of protesters, including families of the estimated 136 hostages still held by Hamas and Israelis who have been displaced by the war, blocked a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid at the Kerem Shalom border crossing on Wednesday, keeping the terminal closed for more than five hours.

“No aid goes through until the last of the hostages returns. Don’t supply the enemy,” said the protesters, who also included relatives of soldiers who fell in battle in Gaza and reservists who were released from service after months of fighting.

There were conflicting reports about progress in contacts to achieve a ceasefire and free more hostages.

Reuters reported that Israel and Hamas had come to an agreement in principle to reach a deal in which hostages would be released during a month-long pause in fighting. Hamas, however, refused to move forward in the talks unless the parties first concluded the terms that will lead to an end to the war. A Hamas official said the organisation rejected an Israeli proposal to end the war in exchange for exiling six of its leaders from the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli political official denied significant progress in the talks and said that while negotiations remained ongoing, no agreements have been reached.

Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said securing the return of the hostages was not only Israel’s most important goal but also was “a moral duty of the state”. However, in comments on Wednesday, he stressed that “while this is an urgent goal, it does not replace the commitment to remove the unrelenting threat of Hamas”.

Sixteen leading international humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam and Amnesty International, issued a joint call for all United Nations member states to halt arms transfers to Israel and Palestinian armed groups.

“We demand an immediate ceasefire and call on all states to halt the transfer of weapons that can be used to commit violations of international humanitarian and human rights law,” the organisations said.