🔴 Live: Fighting rages across Gaza as Israel-Hamas war enters third month

Israeli soldiers operate in a location given as Gaza in a handout picture released on December 7, 2023. © Israel Defense Forces (IDF), via Reuters

Heavy urban combat raged throughout Gaza on Thursday with some of the war’s most intensive fighting so far reported in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north and Khan Younis in the south. Aid groups warned that Gazans are running out of places to flee as Israeli strikes were also reported in the southern border town of Rafah. Follow our live blog for all the latest developments. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).

Summary: 

• Heavy urban combat raged in and around Gaza's biggest cities on Thursday, with major battles reported in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north and Khan Younis in southern Gaza. Israel and Hamas have both said the past 48 hours have brought the most intensive fighting since the start of the war.
• Residents in Rafah said on Thursday that Israeli forces launched two strikes on the crowded border town where civilians from all over the strip have sought refuge. Aid groups warned that Gazans are running out of places to flee as the number of displaced residents has risen to to 1.9 million, according to the UN. 
• Israel and the UN signalled that the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel into the Gaza Strip might be opened soon to allow aid in. Since the start of the war, the tightly controlled Rafah border between Gaza and Egypt has been the only point of entry into the enclave.
• The head of medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières said on Thursday that Gaza faces a catastrophe extending "far beyond a humanitarian crisis", describing the situation in the densely populated enclave as chaotic.
• Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to the Israeli government. Since then, at least 17,177 people, including 7,112 children, have been killed in Israel's ensuing assault on the Gaza Strip, the territory's Hamas-run health ministry said. At least 46,000 people have been injured and at least 7,600 people are missing, the Hamas media office said.

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Yesterday's key developments:

• Antonio Guterres warned that he expects "public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions" in Gaza, where Israeli forces have expanded their offensive to the southern city of Khan Younis.

• The US State Department said that the US would object to any proposed buffer zone inside the Gaza Strip, as it would violate Washington's position that the size of the Palestinian enclave must not be reduced after the current conflict.

• The UN rights chief voiced deep concern over allegations of sexual violence by Hamas militants during their October 7 attack, calling on Israel to allow his team in to investigate.

• Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu says the Israeli military will have to retain open-ended security control over the Gaza Strip long after its war against Hamas ends.

• An Israeli non-governmental organisation warned that Israeli authorities have approved the construction of more than 1,700 new homes, saying that the new homes would expand settlements in annexed east Jerusalem. Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War and formally annexed the city’s eastern part in 1980 – a move that is not recognised by the United Nations.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)