RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Hundreds of dual passport holders and dozens of seriously injured Palestinians were allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday after more than three weeks under siege, while Israeli airstrikes destroyed apartments in a densely populated area for a second day.
The first people to leave Gaza — other than four hostages released by Hamas and another rescued by Israeli forces — crossed into Egypt, escaping the territory’s growing misery as bombings drive hundreds of thousands from their homes, and food, water and fuel run low. It remained unclear how many more people would be allowed to leave Gaza in coming days.
The latest strikes in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City demolished multistory apartment buildings, and dozens of men afterward dug through the rubble, searching for survivors, according to footage from Al Jazeera television, one of the few news outlets still reporting from northern Gaza. It showed several wounded people, including children, being brought to a nearby hospital.
The Al Jazeera video showed nearly identical scenes to those of the day before, with dozens of men digging through the gray rubble of demolished multistory buildings in search of survivors.
The toll from Tuesday’s strikes was also unknown, though the director of a nearby hospital said hundreds were killed or wounded. Israel said those airstrikes killed dozens of militants — including a senior Hamas commander who was involved in the group’s bloody Oct. 7 rampage that ignited the war — and destroyed militant tunnels beneath the buildings.
In a sign of increasing alarm among Arab countries over the war, Jordan on Wednesday recalled its ambassador to Israel and told Israel’s ambassador to Jordan to remain out of the country. Jordan, a key U.S. ally, signed a peace deal with Israel in 1994, the second Arab country to do so, after Egypt.
While Palestinians are horrified by Israel’s war in Gaza, many are also angry with what they see as their own weak and useless official leadership.
Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Ayman Safadi, who is also the foreign minister, said the return of the ambassadors to their posts is linked to Israel “stopping its war on Gaza … and the humanitarian catastrophe it is causing.†He warned of the potential of the conflict to spread, threatening “the security of the entire region.â€
Israeli ground forces were pushing to the outskirts of Gaza City, days after launching a new phase of the war that Israel’s leaders say will be long and difficult. As when Israeli troops first pushed into Gaza in larger numbers over the weekend, internet and phone service was cut for several hours Wednesday.
The isolated Palestinian territory, home to 2.3 million people, is in the grip of a severe humanitarian crisis amid a siege imposed by Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7 attack. More than half of the residents have fled their homes, and supplies of food, medicine, water and fuel are running low. A territory-wide blackout has left hospitals reliant on generators that could shut down soon as Israel has barred all fuel imports.
The strikes in Jabaliya underline the anticipated surge in casualties on both sides as Israeli troops advance toward the outskirts of Gaza City and its dense residential neighborhoods. Israeli officials say Hamas’ military infrastructure, including hundreds of miles of underground tunnels, is concentrated in the city, which was home to some 650,000 people before the war.
Amid the deteriorating circumstances, six buses carrying 335 foreign passport holders left Gaza through the Rafah crossing into Egypt as of mid-afternoon Wednesday, according to Wael Abu Omar, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Crossings Authority.
The authority said the plan was for more than 400 foreign passport holders to be permitted to leave for Egypt. Egypt, however, has said it will not accept an influx of Palestinian refugees for fear that Israel will not allow them to return to Gaza after the war.
Seventy-six Palestinian patients, along with their companions, have been evacuated for treatment in Egypt, Abu Omar said. Ten other patients set to be brought out died before they could be evacuated, Dr. Mohamed Zaqout, a Health Ministry official in Gaza, told the Associated Press. The criteria for medical evacuation were not immediately clear.
Those who remain behind are contending with multiple crises, made worse Wednesday by the communications blackout. The Palestinian telecoms company Paltel said internet and mobile phone services were gradually being restored in Gaza following a “complete disruption†that lasted several hours.
Corporate leaders have been quicker to condemn the Hamas terror attack on Israel than they were to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine, but they’re still walking a fine line.
Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org attributed both disruptions to “measures imposed by Israel.†Alp Toker, the director of the group, said that “service remains significantly below prewar levels.â€
The International Committee of the Red Cross said such blackouts make it harder for civilians to seek safety. “Even the potentially lifesaving act of calling an ambulance becomes impossible,†said Jessica Moussan, an ICRC spokesperson.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Gaza’s only hospital offering specialized treatment for cancer patients was forced to shut down because of lack of fuel, leaving 70 cancer patients in a critical situation.
More than 8,700 Palestinians have been killed in the war, mostly women and children, and more than 22,000 people have been wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said Wednesday, without providing a breakdown between civilians and fighters. The figure is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence.
More than 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure. Palestinian militants also abducted about 240 people during their incursion and have continued firing rockets into Israel.
The Israeli military confirmed Wednesday that nine soldiers had been killed in fighting in northern Gaza, bringing the total number of soldiers killed since the start of the ground operation to 11.
Israel has been vague about its operations in Gaza, but residents and spokesmen for militant groups say troops appear to be trying to take control of the two main north-south roads.
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An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south from Gaza City and other northern areas following Israeli orders to evacuate, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north.
Israel has allowed international aid groups to send more than 200 trucks carrying food and medicine to enter from Egypt over the last 10 days, but aid workers say it’s not nearly enough.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ ability to govern Gaza or threaten Israel, while also saying it does not plan to reoccupy Gaza, from which it withdrew soldiers and settlers in 2005. But it has said little about who would govern the territory afterward.
In congressional testimony on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken suggested that “at some point, what would make the most sense is for an effective and revitalized Palestinian Authority to have governance and ultimately security responsibility for Gaza.â€
Hamas drove the authority’s forces out of Gaza in a week of heavy fighting in 2007, leaving it with limited control over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinian support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has plunged since then, with many Palestinians dismissing the authority as little more than Israel’s police force because it helps suppress Hamas and other militant groups.
The war has threatened to ignite more fighting on other fronts. Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group have traded fire daily along the border, and Israel and the U.S. have struck targets in Syria linked to Iran, which supports Hamas, Hezbollah and other armed groups in the region.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman, said Israeli forces “intercepted a threat†overnight south of the southernmost city of Eilat that did not pose any risk to Israelis and did not enter Israeli airspace. A day earlier, the military said it shot down what appeared to be a drone near Eilat and intercepted a missile over the Red Sea. Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed responsibility for the attacks.
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