DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Protesters took to Israel’s streets for what they called a “day of disruption" on Wednesday, denouncing the call-up of tens of thousands of reservists for an offensive that has drawn global condemnation and fueled fears in Israel it could endanger hostages still held in Gaza.
The demonstrations, the latest of their kind to roil Israel, accuse Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet of failing to secure a ceasefire deal and instead intensifying an invasion that hospitals in Gaza say in its initial stages is already accelerating a rise in fatalities.
“We have to take an extreme action so that someone will remember. There’s no such thing as a state abandoning its citizens,” Yael Kuperman, a protester near the Knesset told Israeli public broadcaster Kan.
Strikes hit both Gaza City and southern Gaza as Israel urges evacuation
Meanwhile, hospital officials told The Associated Press at least 24 people were killed in strikes overnight into Wednesday.
Nasser Hospital said it received 10 bodies, including one aid-seeker in Rafah and a child killed by a strike in southern Gaza. Shifa Hospital said the bodies of 14 people, including two children and four women, arrived on Wednesday while Al-Quds Hospital said it received another person killed by Israeli strikes.
Israel says that Gaza City — the largest Palestinian city in either the besieged strip or the occupied West Bank — remains a Hamas stronghold above what military officials claim is a vast underground tunnel network, even after raids earlier in the war.
Israel has intensified air and ground assaults on the outskirts of Gaza City, particularly in western neighborhoods where people are being driven to flee toward the coast, according to humanitarian groups that coordinate assistance for the displaced.
Site Management Cluster, one such group, said on Wednesday that families were trapped by the prohibitively high cost of moving, logistical hurdles and a lack of places to go.
"Palestinians are also reluctant to move due to the fear of not being able to return or exhaustion from repeated displacement,” it said.
Hospitals report dozens killed as international outrage grows
The twin threats of combat and famine, Palestinians and aid workers say, are only growing more acute for families in Gaza City, the vast majority of whom have reported being displaced multiple times during the 23-month war.
Hospital officials and Gaza’s Health Ministry said Wednesday the death toll kept climbing, with people killed in airstrikes while trying to reach aid, or from hunger.
The ministry said 113 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday — more than half in Gaza City — over the past 24 hours.
The toll reported was a casualty count seen regularly in recent weeks and came a day after Netanyahu and Israeli commanders told reservists the offensive was entering what they hoped would be a “decisive stage” of the war.
The ministry reported on Wednesday that five adults and one child died from malnutrition over the past day, bringing the total toll to 367, including 131 children throughout the war.
The ministry reported on Tuesday that 63,633 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 2,300 seeking aid, since the war started Oct. 7, 2023, with a Hamas-led attack on Israel.
Part of the Hamas-run government but staffed by medical professionals, it doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but says women and children make up around half of the dead.
U.N. agencies and many independent experts consider the ministry's figures to be the most reliable estimate of war casualties. Israel disputes them, but hasn’t provided its own toll.
In a letter sent as members of Parliament returned to work in the United Kingdom, three non-governmental organizations highlighted how more than 3,700 Palestinians were killed over the body’s 34-day summer break.
Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders and Medical Aid for Palestinians accused Israel of genocide — a charge it has previously denied. The organizations demanded the British government take action, noting famine, a collapse of the health care system and the killing of Mariam Abu Dagga, a visual journalist who had worked for The Associated Press and Doctors Without Borders.
"This is not merely a humanitarian crisis — it is a full-blown and man-made human rights catastrophe," the statement said. “Expressions of ‘deep concern’ are not enough.”
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Metz reported from Jerusalem and Khaled from Cairo. Associated Press writer Julia Frankel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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