Residents in Gaza seek scarce shelter as bombing intensifies

Strikes carried out despite calls from US for Israel to avoid further harm to civilians

GAZA/CAIRO - Israeli forces bombed wide areas of the Gaza Strip on Dec 3, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians, as civilians in the besieged territory sought shelter in an ever-shrinking area of the south.

Among the sites hit was the Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Hamas-ruled enclave. A Gazan health ministry spokesperson said several people were killed and dozens wounded by an Israeli air strike.

Al Jazeera television broadcast footage that it said showed the aftermath of the strike. People, including a child, were covered in grey dust as smoke rose from piles of rubble and huge chunks of cement from collapsed buildings.

Bombardments from warplanes and artillery also concentrated on Khan Younis and Rafah cities in Gaza's south, residents said, and hospitals were struggling to cope with the flow of wounded.

The renewed warfare followed the end on Dec 1 of a seven-day pause in the fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants to allow an exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners.

It took place despite growing calls from the United States - Israel's closest ally for Israel to avoid further harm to Palestinian civilians.

More than 15,200 have been killed as at Dec 2, according to Gaza's health ministry, in nearly two months of warfare that broke out after a Hamas cross-border raid on southern Israel on Oct 7, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

Israel says it is acting to annihilate Hamas, saying it poses a mortal threat to the Jewish state's very existence. The initial Hamas attack and the ensuing war amount to the bloodiest episode in the decades-old wider Israel-Palestinian conflict.