Top Biden administration officials urge Israel to protect civilians in a Gaza under intense attacks

Palestinians inspect a damaged building following Israeli airstrikes on the town of Khan Younis, Gaza, December 3, 2023.

Israel is facing growing calls from the administration of US President Joe Biden to redouble efforts to prevent the deaths of Palestinian civilians, amid new fighting this Sunday in Gaza.

The southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis has come under heavy Israeli army attacks since the collapse on Friday of a temporary truce between Tel Aviv and Hamas militants.

According to reports from The Associated Press, Israel has expanded its evacuation orders as its offensive moves towards the southern part of Gaza, where it claims the leaders of the Palestinian extremist group are hiding.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Saturday that the campaign would last until all the hostages taken during the surprise attack on October 7 are returned and Hamas is eliminated. "We are in for a tough war," he said.

"Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed,” U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said Saturday. "Frankly, the scale of the civilian suffering and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating," he said from the COP 28 climate conference in Dubai.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin indicated that while "U.S. support for Israel's security is non-negotiable," he personally warned Israel that if it did not take steps to protect civilians, it risked radicalizing them.

“In this type of struggle, the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you push them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” Austin said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.

At the forum of political and military leaders and others, he pressed Israel to dramatically expand Gaza's access to humanitarian aid and renewed U.S. calls for a two-state solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Civilian casualties

At least 200 Palestinians have been killed since the collapse of the truce between Israel and Hamas, raising the death toll in Gaza since the start of the war to more than 15,200 people and more than 40,000 injured, 70% of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza, figures recognized by the United Nations.

About 2 million Palestinians, almost the entire population of Gaza, are now crammed into the southern half of the territory. They are running out of space where they can flee and seek refuge. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that nearly 80% of Gaza's population has been internally displaced.

The Israeli military said on Saturday it had attacked more than 400 Hamas targets across Gaza over the previous day, using airstrikes and shelling from tanks and navy warships. It included more than 50 attacks on Khan Younis and surrounding areas in the southern half of Gaza.

In northern Gaza, an airstrike destroyed a residential building housing displaced families in the Jabaliya urban refugee camp on the outskirts of Gaza City. The attack on the multi-storey building left dozens dead or injured, residents Hamza Obeid and Amal Radwan said.

Israel began its military campaign to eliminate Hamas after its fighters crossed into southern Israel in October. Israel said 1,200 people were killed and about 240 captives. The United States, Britain, the European Union and others have designated Hamas a terrorist organization.

The Palestinian extremist group has fired more than 250 rockets into southern Israel since the ceasefire ended, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, an Israeli army spokesman, said.

In southern Israel, sirens were heard in communities near the Gaza Strip, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

The Israeli military posted an online map dividing the Gaza Strip into hundreds of numbered plots and asked residents to familiarize themselves with the number of their location before evacuation warnings.

Israel has accused Hamas of embedding itself in and under hospitals and other civilian areas and encouraging civilians to ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate before airstrikes, effectively using them as human shields, a charge Hamas has denied.

The Reuters news agency said it could not confirm accounts from the battlefield.

After the truce broke down, Netanyahu's office announced that he had ordered his negotiating team in Doha, Qatar, to return to Israel.