Smoke rises over Gaza as Hamas say another 165 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in last 24 hours and desperate civilians say they are ‘exhausted’ with no end of war in sight

Thick plumes of smoke could be seen drifting over the top of buildings today in the Gaza Strip’s southern city of Khan Yunis, the focus of recent fighting in a war that is now in its 13th week. 

Fighting raged today across Gaza, where displaced Palestinians are ‘exhausted’ with no end in sight to the war between the besieged territory’s Hamas rulers and Israel. 

The enclave’s Hamas-run health ministry said that 165 Gazans were killed over the past 24 hours, while a total of 56,165 others have been wounded in the fighting.

It added that at least 21,672 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war with Israel erupted on October 7. 

Further south, the border city of Rafah near Egypt was teeming with Gazans seeking safety from Israel’s relentless bombardment in its fight against Hamas terrorists.

‘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 narrow Palestinian territory.

The fighting began with Hamas’s bloody October 7 attacks, which left about 1,140 people dead in Israel, mostly civilians. 

Terrorists also took about 250 people hostage, and Israel says 129 of them remain in Gaza.

Israel’s army says 168 soldiers have been killed in combat inside the territory.

There was continuous artillery shelling overnight in Rafah and Khan Yunis, and the Gaza health ministry said ‘multiple’ people had died in a strike on a house in Nuseirat refugee camp, in the territory’s centre.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Friday reiterated his call for ‘an immediate humanitarian ceasefire’ as conditions in the Strip keep deteriorating.

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 per cent of our… capacity,’ doctor Ahmad Abu Mustafa said in footage shared by the World Health Organization (WHO).

‘The beds are full… and we are basically short on all sorts of medicine supplies.’

In central Gaza’s Zawayda, Palestinians were inspecting damage and pulling the body of a child from under the rubble after an Israeli strike.

Slain reporter Jabr Abu Hadrous was laid to rest in Deir al-Balah.

‘Palestinian journalists are killed, arrested and prosecuted,’ said fellow journalist Basel Khalaf, calling on the international community to ‘stand by Palestinian journalists, not only in words but also in actions’.

An army statement today said ‘two Hamas military compounds were dismantled by the troops’ in Beit Lahia, and dozens of ‘terrorists’ had been killed in Gaza City, both in the territory’s north.

Ahmed al-Baz, a 33-year-old Palestinian displaced from Gaza City, said this year had been ‘the worst in my life’.

‘It was a year of destruction and devastation,’ he said in Rafah, surrounded by tents in a makeshift camp.

‘We just want the war to end, and start the new year at home, with a ceasefire declared.’

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 today 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, also vowing to return the captives still in Gaza.

Mia Shem, an Israeli-French hostage abducted from the site of the Nova music festival and released under November’s truce agreement, told Israeli media she was locked up ‘in a dark room’ and ‘forbidden’ from talking. 

‘There was a fear of rape, fear of dying,’ Shem, 21, said in an interview with Israel’s Channel 13 which aired on Friday.

An Israeli siege imposed after October 7, following years of crippling blockade, has led to dire shortages of food, safe water, fuel and medicine in Gaza, with aid convoys offering only sporadic relief.

On Friday, a total of 72 aid trucks, most of them carrying food, entered Gaza, according to the territory’s border crossings authority.

Gaza also received four fuel trucks and 29 commercial food trucks, it said.

The UN says more than 85 per cent of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have fled their homes.

South Africa on Friday filed an application at the International Court of Justice to start proceedings for what it said were ‘genocidal acts’ in Gaza, which Israel dismissed as ‘blood libel’.

Key Israeli ally the United States, meanwhile, announced the approval of a $147.5 million (£115.8 million) sale of 155mm high-explosive artillery munitions and related equipment to Israel from US Army stocks.

The Gaza war has intensified tensions across the region.

Israel has traded regular cross-border fire with Lebanon’s powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, and early Saturday the army said it had struck in Syria following rocket launches.