Heavy fighting in Gaza Strip halts most aid delivery and leaves civilians with less refuge

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Intense fighting blocked relief workers from distributing food, water and medicine across most of the Gaza Strip, deepening the humanitarian crisis as Israeli forces battled Hamas militants Wednesday in a ground offensive that has brought some of the devastation and mass displacement seen in the north to the south.

As the focus of the offensive moves down the Gaza Strip and into the second-largest city of Khan Younis, it is further shrinking the area where Palestinians can seek safety and pushing large numbers of people, many of whom have been forced to flee multiple times, toward the sealed-off border with Egypt.

On the Gaza side of the border, makeshift shelters and family homes are already overflowing and many people are sleeping in the streets. On the other side, Egypt has refused any mass influx of refugees, saying it believes Israel will not let them back into Gaza and that the two countries’ decades-old peace treaty would be undermined.

The U.N. says some 1.87 million people — over 80% of the population of 2.3 million — have already fled their homes. Many Palestinians fear they will not be allowed to return.

Much of the north, including large parts of Gaza City, has been completely destroyed, and Palestinians worry the rest of Gaza could suffer a similar fate as Israel tries to dismantle Hamas, which has deep roots in the territory it has ruled for 16 years.

Two months of Israeli bombardment and ground assaults have killed more than 16,200 people in Gaza — most of them women and children — and wounded more than 42,000, the territory’s Health Ministry said late Tuesday. It has said many are also trapped under rubble. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and deaths.

Israel has vowed to fight on, saying it can no longer accept Hamas rule or the group’s military presence in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attack that triggered the war. Hamas and other militants killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took captive some 240 men, women and children in that attack.

An estimated 138 hostages remain in Gaza after more than 100 were freed during a cease-fire last week. Their plight, and accounts of rape and other atrocities committed during the rampage, have deepened Israel’s outrage and further galvanized support for the war. combatant