RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) \u2014 Palestinians who fled an ongoing Israeli raid of Gaza\u2019s main hospital described mass arrests and forced marches past bodies in interviews on Sunday, while the United Nations said Israel is now blocking its main agency helping Palestinians from sending food aid to the enclave\u2019s devastated north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israel\u2019s military says it has killed more than 170 militants and detained about 480 suspects in the raid on Shifa Hospital that began Monday, calling it a blow to Hamas and other armed groups it says had regrouped there as the war<\/u><\/a> nears the six-month mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The fighting highlights the resilience of Palestinian armed groups in a heavily destroyed part of Gaza where Israeli troops have been forced to return after a similar raid in the war\u2019s earliest weeks<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kareem Ayman Hathat, who lived in a five-story building about 100 meters from the hospital, said he huddled in the kitchen for days while explosions sometimes caused the building to shake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Early Saturday, Israeli troops stormed the building and forced dozens of residents to leave. He said men were forced to strip to their underwear and four were detained. The rest were blindfolded and ordered to follow a tank south as blasts thundered around them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFrom time to time, the tank would fire a shell,\u201d he told The Associated Press. \u201cIt was to terrorize us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israeli jets on Sunday launched several strikes near Shifa Hospital, which largely stopped functioning following the November raid. After claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center there, Israeli forces months ago exposed a single tunnel<\/u><\/a> leading to a few underground rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Hardly any aid has been delivered in recent weeks to northern Gaza and Gaza City, where Shifa is located. The isolated area suffered widespread devastation in the early days of Israel\u2019s offensive launched after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack<\/u><\/a> that triggered the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As of Sunday, Israel has told the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees it will no longer approve agency food convoys to northern Gaza, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is outrageous and makes it intentional to obstruct lifesaving assistance during a man-made famine,\u201d he said. The agency, Gaza\u2019s biggest humanitarian provider<\/u><\/a>, is repeatedly accused by Israel of having links to Hamas. Israel\u2019s government didn\u2019t immediately respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Experts have said famine is imminent in northern Gaza<\/u><\/a>, where more than 210,000 people suffer from catastrophic hunger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A day after standing near some of the estimated 7,000 aid trucks waiting to enter Gaza and calling the starvation a \u201cmoral outrage,\u201d U.N. Secretary-General Ant\u00f3nio Guterres<\/u><\/a> urged an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, the release of hostages held in Gaza and Israel\u2019s removal of \u201cobstacles\u201d to allow a flood of aid delivery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLooking at Gaza, it almost appears that the four horsemen of war, famine, conquest and death are galloping across it,\u201d Guterres said in Egypt, adding that nothing justifies the collective punishment of Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry said that five wounded Palestinians trapped at Shifa Hospital died without food, water or medical services. The World Health Organization\u2019s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, described conditions as \u201cutterly inhumane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Jameel al-Ayoubi, among thousands sheltering at Shifa when the current raid began, said tanks and armored bulldozers plowed into the hospital courtyard, crushing ambulances and civilian vehicles. He saw tanks drive over at least four bodies of people killed in the raid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel\u2019s military said Saturday it had evacuated patients and medical staff from Shifa\u2019s emergency department because militants \u201centrenched\u201d themselves there, and set up an alternative site for seriously wounded patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Abed Radwan, who lived about 200 meters (yards) from the hospital, said Israeli forces stormed all area buildings, detaining several people and forcing the rest to march south. He saw bodies in the streets and several flattened homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey left nothing intact,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel\u2019s military early Sunday also stormed al-Amal and Nasser hospitals in the southern city of Khan Younis amid \u201cvery intense shelling,\u201d the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said. Israel\u2019s military announced operations in Khan Younis targeting Hamas infrastructure but said troops weren\u2019t currently operating in the hospitals. It accused Hamas of using hospitals as shields.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The war has killed at least 32,226 Palestinians, according to Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry<\/u><\/a>. It doesn\u2019t distinguish between civilians and combatants in its toll, but says women and children make up around two-thirds of the dead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/a>Among the latest killed were at least seven people, including three children, when an Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah overnight, according to health authorities. And an airstrike near Deir al-Balah late Sunday killed at least 10 members of a family including two children, according to an AP journalist who saw the bodies at a hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel says it has killed more than 13,000 militants, without providing evidence. It blames civilian casualties on Hamas, accusing it of embedding in residential areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than 80% of Gaza\u2019s population of 2.3 million have fled their homes, with most seeking refuge in the southernmost city of Rafah<\/u><\/a>, which Israel calls the next target of its ground offensive. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejects pleas from the United States<\/u><\/a> and others to avoid a major ground operation there, calling it essential for defeating Hamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that he was traveling to the U.S. on Sunday at Washington\u2019s invitation, with a goal of preserving \u201cour ability to obtain air systems and munitions\u201d for the war and maintaining critical ties with Israel\u2019s top ally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack across southern Israel killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took scores hostage. Hamas still holds an estimated 100 hostages and the remains of 30 others. Most of the rest were freed in exchange for the release of some Palestinian prisoners in November.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United States, Qatar and Egypt are trying to broker another cease-fire and release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the border from Gaza on Sunday, Jews celebrated their most joyful of holidays<\/u><\/a>, Purim, the biblical story of how a plot to exterminate Jews in Persia was thwarted as an affirmation of Jewish survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n