Hamas said it was striking back against Israeli forces across Gaza on Monday and Palestinians and international relief agencies said public order was disintegrating as hunger spread, fuelling fears of a mass exodus to Egypt.
The narrow coastal strip has been under a full Israeli blockade since the start of the conflict more than two months ago and the border with Egypt is the only other way out.
Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes and residents say it is impossible to find refuge, or increasingly food, in the densely populated enclave, with around 18,000 people already killed and conflict intensifying.
Gazans said people forced to flee repeatedly were dying of hunger and cold as well as bombardment, describing desperate attacks on aid trucks and sky high prices.
"Had any of us expected that our people may die of hunger, had it crossed anyone's mind before?" said Rola Ghanim, among many expressing bewilderment on social media.
Aid trucks risked being stopped by desperate residents if they even slowed down at an intersection, Carl Skau, said deputy executive director of the U.N. World Food Programme.
"Half of the population are starving, nine out of 10 are not eating every day," he told Reuters on Saturday.
One Palestinian told Reuters he had not eaten for three days and had to beg for bread for his children.
"I pretend to be strong but I am afraid I will collapse in front of them at any moment," he said by telephone, declining to be named for fear of reprisals.
After the collapse of a week-long ceasefire on Dec. 1, Israel began a ground offensive in the south last week and has since pushed from the east into the heart of the city of Khan Younis, with warplanes attacking an area to the west.
On Monday, militants and some residents said fighters were preventing Israeli tanks moving further west through the city and clashing with Israeli forces in northern Gaza, where Israel had said its tasks were largely complete.
Israel said dozens of Hamas fighters had surrendered and urged others to join them. The armed wing of Hamas said it had fired rockets towards Tel Aviv, where Israelis fled to shelters.
U.N. officials say 1.9 million people - 85 percent of Gaza's population - are displaced and describe the conditions in the southern areas where they have concentrated as hellish.
"I expect public order to completely break down soon and an even worse situation could unfold including epidemic diseases and increased pressure for mass displacement into Egypt," U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday.
Palestinians in Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied West Bank observed a general strike on Monday called by activists to demand a cease-fire, after the U.S. vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for one on Friday. A similar, nonbinding vote is planned in the General Assembly on Tuesday.
ISRAEL DENIES SEEKING TO EMPTY GAZA
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner general of UNRWA, the U.N. body responsible for the welfare of Palestinian refugees, wrote on Saturday that pushing Gazans closer and closer to the border pointed to "attempts to move Palestinians into Egypt".
The border with Egypt is heavily fortified, but Hamas militants blew holes in the wall in 2008 to break a tight blockade. Gazans crossed to buy food and other goods but quickly returned, with none permanently displaced.
Egypt has long warned it would not allow Gazans into its territory this time, fearing they would not be able to return.
Jordan, which absorbed the bulk of Palestinians after the creation of Israel in 1948, accused Israel on Sunday of seeking "to empty Gaza of its people".
Hezbollah and IDF exchange fire across Israel-Lebanon border
Israeli forces and Hamas fighters engaged in heavy fighting Monday in and around Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, while battles were ongoing outside Gaza City in the north.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari told reporters late Sunday that Israeli forces are now focused on fighting in Jabaliya and Shajaiye, two neighborhoods in northern Gaza, as well as in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest city
The fighting has pushed an estimated 1.9 million people from their homes in Gaza, with many seeking shelter in the south in overcrowded facilities amid warnings of poor sanitary conditions and the threat of an increase in communicable diseases.
The strike today is not only in solidarity with Gaza, but also against the USA which used its veto in the Security Council against a truce," Abu Baker said in Ramallah, referring to the US rejection of a ceasefire resolution on Friday.
Western news media simultaneously wrote "Hamas is believed to have suffered heavy losses." This means that there is no result from Israel's attacks on Hamas other than destroying buildings. That's how the West deceives the public, especially Jews, who have that inherent character.
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