UNRWA says two tank shells hit a building in a carpentry training center housing thousands of displaced Palestinians on Wednesday, causing the building to catch fire. It did not directly blame Israel, which is the only party to the conflict that has tanks.The Israeli military said it has “currently ruled out” that the strike was carried out by its aircraft or artillery but was still investigating. It says the building might have been hit by a Hamas rocket.Fighting has cut off the two main hospitals, Nasser and Al Amal, trapping hundreds of patients and thousands of displaced people inside. White said another hospital, Al-Khair, was evacuated overnight and that among the patients who departed were women who had just undergone cesarean sections.Israeli troops earlier in the week seized Al-Khair hospital, which is located in a coastal zone near Khan Younis that the military had previously said was a safe zone for Palestinians.Thousands of Palestinians fled Khan Younis toward the Mediterranean coast Thursday to escape the fighting. Two women who spoke with the Associated Press said they were among a number of people that Israeli troops forced to evacuate from a school where they had been sheltering.“Suddenly, they started calling from the microphones to evacuate the site within half an hour,” said one of the women, Amal, who said she gave birth three days earlier and fled the school with her newborn. “Now we are here, not knowing where to go,” she said. The troops detained young men at the school for interrogation, she said.The Israeli military said its troops were engaging in close, urban combat with Hamas fighters in neighborhoods of Khan Younis, calling in airstrikes and attack helicopters to hit militants spotted with RPGs and weapons.Footage released by the military showed paratroopers charging into the city’s municipal building, which was battered and punctured from shelling, while the area around it was reduced to dirt mounds. The soldiers scoured through empty offices and fired out of windows.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with the offensive until “complete victory” over Hamas, and to return all the hostages. The United States, Israel’s top ally, has provided crucial military support and shielded it from international calls for a cease-fire while urging it to scale back operations and facilitate the delivery of more humanitarian aid.South Africa has accused Israel of committing genocide before the U.N. world court at The Hague, which announced that it would issue a decision Friday on its request for an interim order telling Israel to halt the hostilities.
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