No end in sight to the fighting in the Gaza war

After a two-day break, Israel was once again bombarded with rockets from the Gaza Strip. Air alarms sounded in several places in the Israeli south and in Tel Aviv. The military wing of Hamas announced that it had launched "rocket fire" towards Tel Aviv "in response to the Israeli massacres against civilians". After the rockets were intercepted by Israeli air defenses, police reported falling debris but no casualties.

Meanwhile, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) stated that Israel had published maps on Wednesday in which around 20 percent of the urban area of Chan Junis was newly designated as an area to be evacuated. More than 110,000 people lived in the area before the fighting between Israel and Hamas began. According to the UN, there are also 32 emergency shelters with more than 140,000 internally displaced persons, most of them from the north of the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli armed forces had already reported their own attacks against "dozens of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure" in Khan Yunis on Wednesday. The army had announced on Monday that it would intensify its attacks on targets in the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip, four people were killed in shelling of the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Among them was the head of the crossing, it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an investigation into reports of the killing of "11 unarmed Palestinians" in the city of Gaza. The men were killed during an Israeli army operation in a residential building in which several families were living. The human rights organization EuroMed disseminated eyewitness reports according to which the men were separated from their wives and children and then shot in front of their relatives.

A representative of Israel rejected the accusations as "another example of the UN's biased and prejudiced attitude towards Israel".

The Gaza war was triggered by an unprecedented large-scale attack by Hamas on Israel. On 7 October, hundreds of fighters from Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization by the EU and the USA, invaded Israeli towns and committed atrocities against civilians. According to Israeli reports, around 1140 people were killed and around 250 people were taken hostage in the Gaza Strip.

In response, the Israeli army has since bombed targets in the Gaza Strip and launched a ground offensive. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, which cannot be independently verified, at least 20,000 people have now been killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the eradication of Hamas to be the goal. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari stated on Thursday that the Israeli armed forces had killed more than 2,000 Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip since December 1.

This goal was doomed to failure, said a spokesman for Hamas' armed wing, the Essedine al-Kassam Brigades. In an audio recording, he also said that any further release of hostages would depend on a "cessation of hostilities".

Meanwhile, Israel is increasingly feeling the pressure from its allies to better protect civilians. According to UN estimates, 1.9 out of 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have had to flee their homes. They lack food, water, fuel and medical supplies. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared on Thursday that there were no longer any functioning hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip.

Politicians called for more aid deliveries for the Gaza Strip. "Everything that can be done must be done to get aid into Gaza to help people in the desperate situation they are in," said British Foreign Secretary David Cameron during a visit to Egypt.

According to the Elysée Palace in Jordan, French President Emmanuel Macron discussed cooperation on humanitarian and medical aid for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip with King Abdullah II on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council in New York wanted to try again on Thursday to agree on a resolution calling for a ceasefire. Votes on a resolution text sought in recent days had been repeatedly postponed. The aim of the consultations is to ensure that the USA - one of Israel's most important allies - does not block the planned resolution with a veto.