‘Our life is gone’Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the army was hitting Gaza’s main southern city of Khan Yunis particularly hard to dismantle the Hamas leadership, which the army says has already been done in northern Gaza.Israel’s army announced the death of one soldier on Wednesday, bringing to 193 the total number killed in Gaza since ground operations began in late October.At the Abu Yussef Al-Najjar hospital in Rafah, Palestinians stood in front of bodies wrapped in shrouds, mourning loved ones killed in Israeli bombardment.Hassan Gebril Franjee, a resident of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, returned to find his home had been destroyed.”I wish they would stop the war because the situation is devastating. Our youth is gone. Our whole life is gone,” he told AFP.The United Nations says the war has displaced roughly 85 percent of Gaza’s people, many of whom have crowded into shelters and struggle to get food, water, fuel and medical care.At Israel’s Nir Oz kibbutz, where about one in four residents was killed or kidnapped in the Hamas attack, Yossi Schneider is clinging to hope for his relative Kfir Bibas, a baby, despite Hamas’s announcing his death.The youngest hostage kidnapped by Hamas was less than nine months old on October 7 and would be celebrating his first birthday this week.”We are thinking about them every day, every second, every minute,” Schneider said of Bibas and his missing brother and mother.West Bank violenceSince October 7 violence has also surged in the Israeli-occupied West Bank to a level not seen since the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, between 2000 and 2005.Israeli army raids and attacks by settlers have killed around 360 people in the territory, according to the Palestinian health ministry.Israeli forces killed 10 people in the West Bank on Wednesday, the Palestinian health ministry and the Israeli army said.Five were killed inside Tulkarem refugee camp, according to the ministry, while Israel’s military confirmed an air strike that killed “a number of terrorists” during a raid there.Separately, Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s Fatah party, said five of its fighters died east of the city of Nablus.Among them was Ahmed Abdullah Abu Shalal, a Palestinian militant, both sides said.The Israeli army said he was killed following intelligence “of his cell’s intentions of carrying out an imminent terrorist attack”.Fears are mounting the Israel-Hamas conflict will trigger an all-out war across the Middle East, with growing violence involving Iran-aligned groups.Israel has exchanged regular cross-border fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement since the start of the war.Military chief Herzi Halevi warned on Wednesday the likelihood of war on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon in the coming months was “much higher”.US forces late Wednesday said they conducted a fourth round of strikes on areas of Yemen controlled by Iran-backed Huthi rebels. United States Central Command (CENTCOM) said forces struck 14 Huthi missiles that were loaded to be fired.The latest strikes came after Washington said it would re-designate the Huthis as a “terrorist” entity, for their attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea vital to world trade.The Huthis vowed to continue their attacks against what they deem Israeli-linked shipping and said they had hit another vessel on Wednesday, following the US designation.CENTCOM said a US-owned and operated, Marshall Islands-flagged bulk carrier had been hit but was still sailing.The United States and Britain bombed scores of targets inside Huthi-controlled Yemen last week in response to attacks by the rebels.
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