DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli forces bombed towns and refugee camps across the Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, killing dozens of people in an air and ground offensive against Hamas that spread across most of the territory and has displaced thousands of people, more people fleeing their homes and emergency shelters.

The war has already killed over 20,000 Palestinians and forced around 85% of the 2.3 million residents from their homes. Large parts of the northern Gaza Strip have been razed to the ground for weeks, largely depopulated and isolated from the rest of the territory. Many fear that the South will face a similar fate.

Israel has vowed to crush Hamas – which still faces fierce resistance even in the north – and return more than 100 hostages still held by the militants following their Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that left about 1,200 people dead , mostly civilians, were killed.

Israel has rejected international calls for a ceasefire, saying it would amount to a Hamas victory.

While the United States provided crucial support for the offensive, it called on Israel to take greater action to spare civilians and facilitate more aid. But aid workers say the amount of food, fuel and medical supplies entering the country is still far below needs and one in four Palestinians in Gaza are going hungry, according to U.N. officials.

Strikes from north to south

An Israeli airstrike on a house in the northern city of Beit Lahiyeh – one of the first targets of the ground invasion that began in October – buried at least 21 people, including women and children, according to a family member.

Bassel Kheir al-Din, a journalist with a local television station, said the strike leveled his family home and severely damaged three neighboring houses. He said 12 members of his family – including three children ages 2, 7 and 8 – were buried and presumed dead, and nine neighbors were missing.

In the center of the Gaza Strip, Israeli warplanes and artillery bombed the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps that had been set up and leveled buildings, residents said. Israel announced this week that it would expand its ground offensive into the central Gaza Strip, typically launching waves of airstrikes and shelling before troops and tanks advance.

A hospital in the nearby city of Deir al-Balah received the bodies of 25 people killed overnight, including five children and seven women, hospital records showed Thursday. Continuous explosions were heard throughout the city throughout the night – hundreds of thousands of people sought shelter and many spent cold nights sleeping on sidewalks.

“It was another night of killings and massacres,” said Saeed Moustafa, a resident of Nuseirat camp. He said people were still crying under the rubble of a house hit by an airstrike on Wednesday.

“We can’t get them out. We hear their screams but we have no equipment,” he said.

Further south, in Khan Younis, the Palestinian Red Crescent said at least 10 people were killed and another 12 injured in an attack near its Al-Amal hospital. Much of the city’s population has left the city, but many are seeking refuge near Al-Amal and another hospital. hoping that they would be spared from the bombing.

Another wave of displacement

Rami Abu Mosab, who lives in the Bureij refugee camp, said thousands of people had fled their homes in recent days because of the intense bombardment. He wants to stay there because he feels that nowhere in the Gaza Strip is safe.

“Here is death and there is death,” he said, “To die at home is better.”

Bureij and Nuseirat are among several camps in the region set up to house hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding the creation of Israel. Since then they have grown into overcrowded residential areas.

About 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during that conflict, an exodus that Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe. Since October 7, around 1.9 million people have been displaced within the Gaza Strip.

As Israel expanded its offensive, fleeing Palestinians crowded into areas along the Egyptian border and the southern Mediterranean coast where there are overcrowded shelters and tent camps. Even in these areas, Israel continues to attack supposedly militant targets.

The Israeli military blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas, which deploys fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in densely populated residential areas. But the military rarely comments on individual attacks.

Israel’s offensive in Gaza has already been one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. More than 21,100 Palestinians have been killed in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry. The count does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.

The military says it has killed thousands of militants without providing evidence and that 167 of its soldiers were killed in the ground offensive.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writer Najib Jobain wrote from Rafah, Gaza.

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