A Palestinian girl in a vehicle taking children out of Gaza for medical treatment abroad on Thursday.Credit...Mohammed Salem/Reuters
Israel and Egypt agreed to allow at least 19 sick children, most of them cancer patients, to leave Gaza for medical treatment on Thursday, Israeli and Palestinian officials said, in the first major evacuation of critically ill Gazans since the Rafah border crossing shut down in early May.
The Israeli military said the operation had been carried out in coordination with the United States, Egypt and the international community. In total, 68 people — sick and injured patients and their escorts — were allowed to leave, the military said.
Tania Hary, who directs Gisha, an Israeli nonprofit organization that advocates the free movement of Palestinians, said she was relieved that the children may “have a chance at life and finally receive the care they deserve.” But she emphasized that many more sick and wounded people remained trapped in Gaza, without any obvious mechanism for how they might be evacuated.
“It is a drop in an ocean of suffering, as thousands more wait to reach medical facilities outside the strip,” she said. “It serves as another reminder that the most vulnerable residents of Gaza — its children, sick and elderly — are paying the highest price.”
More than 10,000 sick and wounded people in Gaza require urgent care that is available only outside the enclave, the World Health Organization said this week. They include those wounded in airstrikes, as well as cancer patients, children with life-threatening illnesses and older people who need open-heart surgery.
Even before the war, many Gazans were forced to travel abroad for lifesaving treatments, like chemotherapy, which were almost nonexistent in the Gaza Strip. The enclave’s health sector has struggled for more than 15 years under a crippling Israeli-Egyptian blockade intended to contain Hamas.
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A woman waving goodbye to her son as he and other patients left for the Gazan border.Credit...Mohammed Salem/Reuters
But the main conduit through which Gazans could leave — the Rafah crossing with Egypt — shut down after Israeli forces captured it in May during a military offensive. Egypt shuttered its side of the gateway in protest, and the Gazan part was later destroyed in a fire, according to the Israeli military, seemingly dashing hopes that the crossing would be reopened in the near future.
At least two sick Gazans who were scheduled to leave in early Maydied because they weren’t allowed to evacuate in time to get lifesaving care, their family members said.
With the Rafah crossing closed, the group of children allowed to leave on Thursday was taken into Israeli territory through another border point, Kerem Shalom, before being brought to Egypt. The move did not appear to immediately herald a new permanent route for the critically ill to safely leave Gaza.
One of the children who made the crossing on Thursday was a 10-month-old girl named Sadeel Hamdan.
For months, her family had looked on with growing dread as Sadeel’s condition deteriorated. Her belly swelled like a balloon because of severe liver failure, and she desperately needed a transplant, her father, Tamer Hamdan, said.
On Thursday morning — after weeks of waiting — Mr. Hamdan and Sadeel were finally permitted to leave the enclave. After entering Israel, they were ferried along with other patients to Nitzana, an Israeli border crossing, where they entered Egyptian territory, he said.
“Thank God,” said Mr. Hamdan, who was reached by phone as he sat in a bus on the Egyptian side of the checkpoint. “We’re so happy that we brought out Sadeel safely. Now we just need to complete her treatment.”
Their departure from Gaza, however, was bittersweet. Mr. Hamdan traveled with his daughter so that he could be a partial liver donor, but his wife and three other children were not permitted to join them. He said he feared for their fate in Gaza.
“We’re all heading into the unknown,” he said.
For each patient who left, there were many others left behind. Muna Abu Holi, a college professor from central Gaza, survived an explosion that killed one of her daughters and left two others seriously wounded.
Both of her surviving daughters had received approval to travel through the Rafah crossing on May 7 for medical treatment, according to documents from the Gaza Health Ministry. But the Israeli offensive led to the border’s shutting down.
“We’re grasping for any possible hope,” Ms. Abu Holi said. “Every piece of news we hear, we cling to.”
Canada’s foreign ministry on Thursday announced new sanctions on seven Israeli settlers and five organizations accused of supporting violence against Palestinian civilians, the latest in a series of international penalties on settler groups after a surge of attacks in the West Bank. Canada imposed a first round of sanctions in May, and countries including the United States, France and Britain have taken similar measures.
The Palestine Red Crescent Societysaid that severe fuel shortages in Gaza had put more than a third of its ambulances out of commission. The Red Crescent said on social media that it had not received its daily share of gasoline from UNRWA, the main U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, for about eight days, adding that 18 of its ambulances — about 36 percent of its fleet — were not running as a result. The announcement highlighted the shortage of critical supplies in Gaza, including fuel. The scarcity is exacerbating a growing health and environmental crisis in the enclave while aid groups, including UNRWA, say they are struggling to deliver humanitarian assistance because of logistical complications with Israeli authorities and a lack of security.
An International Criminal Courtcase about arrest warrants for Israeli leaders over their conduct of the war in Gaza may face delays.The court gave Britain permission on Thursday to submit “observations” about the I.C.C.’s jurisdiction, a technical topic that does not go to the substance of the accusations in the warrants. In May, the I.C.C.’s chiefprosecutor, Karim Khan, said that he was applying for arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as for several Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — on the ground that they might have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Britainhas until July 12 to file, a deadline that will apply to any others seeking to submit observations, the I.C.C. said in its decision on Thursday.
The Syrian government said an airstrike targeted a Hezbollah stronghold in the suburbs of the capital, Damascus, a Syrian state news agency, SANA, reported Wednesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based group, said three people were killed and more than 10 others were injured. The exact toll could not be independently confirmed. Syria blamed Israel for the strike. Israel’s military did not immediately comment, but it has previously acknowledged carrying out hundreds of assaults on Iran-linked targets in Syria.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday of planning to spread the war in Gaza to Lebanon “with the consent of the West,” in what he said would be a “grave disaster.” Mr. Netanyahu suggested on Sunday that fighting in Gaza was about to enter a less intense stage and that Israel would be able to move some of its forces north, where cross-border strikes have intensified with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah. But he stopped well short of announcing plans to send troops into Lebanon. The U.N.’s departing humanitarian aid chief, Martin Griffiths, also warned on Wednesday of the dangers posed by a conflict in Lebanon, calling it a “flashpoint beyond all flash points.”
Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, met with Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, on Wednesday to discuss developments in the war in Gaza, tensions along Israel’s border with Lebanon and other issues. During four days of meetings with U.S. officials in Washington, Mr. Gallant said, “we made significant progress, obstacles were removed and bottlenecks were addressed,” noting that he and Mr. Sullivan spoke specifically about Israel’s weapons needs. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has recently accused the United States of holding up weapons shipments, a claim that American officials have denied. Mr. Gallant struck a more conciliatory tone on Wednesday, saying, “It is moving to see the great support we receive from the U.S. government and the American public.”
Palestinian officials and residents said heavy strikes hit the Shajaiye neighborhood of Gaza City and reported multiple casualties. The Israeli military said it could not immediately comment on the strikes.CreditCredit...Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Early in the war against Hamas, as Israeli forces made their way from the north of the Gaza Strip toward the south, a neighborhood in Gaza City called Shajaiye loomed large in the battle. In December, nine soldiers were killed there on what Israel’s military said was one of the deadliest days of the war for its forces.
Later, with Shajaiye ravaged and the Gaza City appearing pacified, the soldiers moved on, eventually taking the fight to Gaza’s southernmost city, Rafah, described as Hamas’s last major stronghold. In turn, Palestinian civilians who had fled the fighting in Gaza City began making their way back.
On Thursday, they were fleeing again.
Israel ordered people in part of eastern Gaza City to evacuate as Palestinian officials and residents reported heavy strikes and multiple casualties. People in the area described a frantic effort to get out as explosions sounded around them. Palestinian officials said the strikes had hit Shajaiye.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun an operation in Shajaiye targeting Hamas fighters and infrastructure.The U.N. office of humanitarian affairs said that 60,000 to 80,000 people had been displaced from areas east and northeast of Gaza City overnight.
Map extent
Erez crossing
Beit Hanoun
Gaza Strip
Beit Lahia
Jabaliya
In May, people in parts of northern Gaza were ordered to evacuate to western Gaza City.
Shajaiye
Gaza City
Mediterranean Sea
On Thursday, civilians in this area of Gaza City were ordered to evacuate south on
Salah-al-Din road.
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Salah-al-Din
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2 miles
Erez crossing
Map extent
In May, people in parts of northern Gaza were ordered to evacuate to western Gaza City.
Gaza Strip
Jabaliya
Shajaiye
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On Thursday, civilians in this area of Gaza City were ordered to evacuate south on
Salah-al-Din road.
Mediterranean Sea
Salah-al-Din
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Israeli- declared safe zone
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2 miles
Source: Israeli military announcements
By Leanne Abraham and Veronica Penney
Mohammad al-Bahrawi, 65, who had returned with his family to their home in Shajaiye months ago, said on Thursday, “We were hearing explosions from every direction.”He said “a torrent” of people were sent running.
“I couldn’t even believe that this many people were still in Shajaiye,” Mr. al-Bahrawi said.
The operation forms part of a larger pattern of a war in which Israel has struggled to achieve its stated objective: wiping out Hamas, which organized and led the Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli territory that set off the war in Gaza.
Israeli forces have repeatedly found themselves returning to parts of Gaza that they had previously left, especially in the north, as Hamas regroups amid the anarchy of the nine-month war. The fighting has flared even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks of a new, less intense phase.
Within Israel and globally, frustration is growing over what critics say is Mr. Netanyahu’s failure to put forward a plan for how Gaza should be governed should Hamas be defeated.
Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said that the key to defeating a counterinsurgency was known by the shorthand “clear, hold, build.”
The Israelis have “thought about Day 1 — kill the bad guys — but have not focused on the next steps,” Mr. Byman said. “That was inexcusable even in October and November. There is less and less excuse now.”
The Gazan health authorities said on Thursday that 15 people had been killed and dozens injured in Shajaiye. Civil Defense, the Palestinian emergency service, said that five homes had been struck in Shajaiye and another neighborhood, and that a search was underway for missing people. The toll could not be independently verified.
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A wounded Palestinian boy receiving treatment at a hospital in Gaza City on Thursday, following what Gazan officials and witnesses said were Israeli strikes.Credit...Dawoud Abu Alkas/Reuters
Mohammed Qraiqea, a researcher with the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor advocacy group, who was in Shajaiye, witnessed what he described as artillery shelling, airstrikes and drone fire on Thursday. He also said that he had seen Israeli tanks on the eastern edge of Gaza City.
“The tanks have advanced in a limited manner, so far, on the outskirts of the neighborhood,” he said Thursday afternoon. By then, he said, most people had evacuated.
Israeli troops invaded northern Gaza in October, taking over territory and pushing south as they took over Hamas strongholds, but they have yet to decisively defeat the armed group. Shajaiye, one of Gaza City’s largest neighborhoods, is home to a battalion that is considered one of the strongest in Hamas’s military wing. It is unclear how big a presence Hamas now has there.
Seth Krummrich, a retired U.S. Army colonel and vice president of Global Guardian, an international security services provider, echoed critics who said Israel was struggling because of its failure to come up with a plan for administering Gaza.
“They have a much bigger problem ahead of them than behind,” Mr. Krummrich said. “The real problem is trying to fix Gaza and make it stable in the future.”
A crater left by a roadside bomb that targeted an Israeli military jeep in the city of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Thursday.Credit...Mohammad Mansour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
An Israeli soldier was killed and another was severely wounded overnight during a raid in the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, the military said on Thursday. It was the latest in a series of violent Israeli raids in the city.
The soldier who was killed, a sniper team commander, “fell during operational activity,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a brief statement, which gave few details. Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, reported that one Palestinian man had been wounded in the raid.
Jenin, in the north of the West Bank, houses a refugee camp founded more than 70 years ago for Palestinians displaced in the wars surrounding the creation of the state of Israel. The city and camp are bastions of armed resistance to the occupation. Israel has conducted frequent raids there over the years, but they have become more common since Oct. 7, when Hamas led a deadly attack on Israel that prompted a war in Gaza.
The military detained 28 people during the overnight raid and nine remain in detention, including Jamal Hawail, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, according to a statement from the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs, which is linked to the Palestinian Authority, and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club, a nongovernmental organization. The council sets policy for Fatah, the political party that controls the Palestinian Authority. The Israeli statement did not comment on the arrests.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been detained in the raids, which Israeli officials say are part of counterterrorism operations against Hamas and an extension of the war.
The U.N. human rights chief, Volker Türk, said this month that Israeli forces and settlers had killed more than 500 people in the West Bank since Oct. 7. In the same period, 24 Israelis, of whom eight were members of the security forces, were killed in the West Bank and in Israel in clashes or what Israel called attacks by Palestinians from the West Bank, Mr. Türk said.
