Fighting raged Saturday across Gaza, where displaced Palestinians said they were “exhausted” with no end in sight to the war between the besieged territory’s Hamas rulers and Israel, now in its 13th week. Smoke billowed over the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Khan Yunis, the focus of recent fighting in the grinding war. Further south, the border city of Rafah near Egypt was teeming with Gazans seeking safety from Israel’s relentless bombardment in its fight against Palestinian fighters. “Enough with this war! We are totally exhausted,” said Umm Louay Abu Khater, a 49-year-old woman who had fled her home in Khan Yunis, taking refuge in Rafah. “We are constantly displaced from one place to another in cold weather,” she said. “The bombs keep falling on us day and night.” The Israeli army kept up its campaign in the face of mounting international pushback, reporting “fierce battles” and air strikes across the Palestinian territory. The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says the Israeli military campaign has killed at least 21,672 people, mostly women and children. A ministry statement Saturday said 165 Gazans were killed over the previous 24 hours. The Israeli army says 170 soldiers have been killed in combat inside the territory. An AFP correspondent reported continuous shelling of Rafah and Khan Yunis overnight, and the health ministry said “multiple” people had died in a strike on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp, in central Gaza. Medics in Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis said they were facing severe shortages. “The hospital is receiving a lot more (patients) than its capacity, in fact we are functioning at 300 percent of our… capacity,” doctor Ahmad Abu Mustafa said in footage shared by the World Health Organization (WHO). The health ministry appealed to the international community for increased support, including assistance in evacuating patients. The fighting has put 23 hospitals and 53 health centres out of service, while 104 ambulances have been destroyed, the ministry said. In north Gaza, the Israeli army said it had killed dozens of “terrorists” in Gaza City and dismantled two Hamas “military compounds” in Beit Lahia. The army released footage of what it said was the demolition of a complex of tunnels in north Gaza that had been used by Hamas as a hideout. International mediators — who last month brokered a one-week truce that saw more than 100 hostages released and some aid enter Gaza — continue in their efforts to secure a new pause in fighting. US news outlet Axios and Israeli website Ynet, both citing unnamed Israeli officials, reported that Qatari mediators had told Israel that Hamas was prepared to resume talks on new hostage releases in exchange for a ceasefire. And a Hamas delegation was in Cairo on Friday to discuss an Egyptian plan proposing renewable ceasefires, a staggered release of hostages for Palestinian prisoners, and ultimately an end to the war, sources close to Hamas say. Islamic Jihad, another armed group fighting alongside Hamas, said on Saturday that Palestinian factions were “in the process” of evaluating the Egyptian proposal. A response will come “within days, and the brothers in Egypt will be informed”, according to Muhammad al-Hindi, Islamic Jihad’s deputy secretary-general. Israel has yet to formally comment on the Cairo plan, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told families of hostages on Thursday that “we are in contact” with the Egyptian mediators.
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