Israel has levelled a northern Gaza district after giving families still there a half-hour warning to escape, as it made clear that a command to invade Gaza was expected soon.
It has also ordered the evacuation of the biggest Israeli town near Lebanon, Kiryat Shmona.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden, back from a trip to Israel to demonstrate support, asked Americans in a televised speech to spend billions more dollars to help Israel fight Hamas, which he said sought to “annihilate” Israel’s democracy.
Israel has vowed to wipe out the Hamas Islamist group that rules Gaza, after its gunmen burst through the barrier fence surrounding the enclave on October 7 and rampaged through Israeli towns and kibbutzes, killing 1400 people, mainly civilians.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant has told troops a battle against Hamas will be long and hard. Photo: Getty
“You see Gaza now from a distance, you will soon see it from inside. The command will come,” Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered at the Gaza border on Thursday.
Israel has pounded Gaza with air strikes and put the enclave’s 2.3 million people under a total siege, banning shipments even of food, fuel and medical supplies.
Since October 7, 3785 Palestinians have been killed including more than 1500 children, Palestinian officials say.
The UN says more than a million have been made homeless.
Israel has already told all civilians to evacuate the northern half of the Gaza Strip, which includes Gaza City but many people stayed at home, saying they feared losing everything if they left or being caught in Israeli air strikes further south.
In Zahra, a northern town, residents on Friday said an entire district of some 25 multi-storey apartment buildings appeared to have been razed to the ground.
They received Israeli warning messages on their mobile phones at breakfast time, followed ten minutes later by a small drone strike that hammered the message home.
Half an hour after the initial warning, F-16 warplanes brought the buildings down in huge explosions and clouds of dust.
“Everything I ever dreamt of and thought that I have achieved was gone. In that apartment was my dream, my memories with my children, and my wife, was the smell of safety and love,” Ali, a resident of the district, told Reuters by phone, declining to give his full name for fear of reprisals.
The United Nations humanitarian affairs office said more than 140,000 homes – nearly a third of all homes in Gaza – have been damaged, with nearly 13,000 completely destroyed.
The Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, the main Palestinian Christian denomination, said Israeli forces had struck the Church of Saint Porphyrius in Gaza City, where Christian and Muslim had sought sanctuary.
Video from the scene at the church compound showed a wounded boy being carried from rubble at night.
A civil defence worker said two people on upper floors had survived; those on lower floors had been killed and were still in the rubble.
Gaza’s Hamas-run government media office said 18 Christian Palestinians had been killed. There was no immediate word from the church on the final death toll. It said targeting churches that were used as shelters for people fleeing bombing was “a war crime that cannot be ignored”.
The Israeli military said part of the church was damaged in a strike by fighter jets on a nearby Hamas command centre involved in launching rockets and mortars towards Israel, and that it was reviewing the incident.
“The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) can unequivocally state that the church was not the target of the strike,” it said.
Chicago mother and daughter Judith and Natalie Raanan have been freed by Hamas. Photo: AAP
Hamas says it has released two US hostages – a mother and daughter – for what it called “humanitarian reasons” following Qatari mediation efforts.
Hamas armed wing spokesman Abu Ubaida issued a statement announcing the release, the first since gunmen from the Islamist militant group burst into Israel on October 7, killing 1400 people, mainly civilians, and taking around 200 hostages.
Israel’s Channel 13 News said Israel had confirmed the release of two hostages but gave no further details.
Some 200 Israelis are thought to have been taken hostage after the Hamas attacks.
While Israeli troops are massing around Gaza in anticipation of an order to invade, conflict is also spreading to two other fronts – the West Bank and the northern border with Lebanon.
Clashes at the border between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement have been the deadliest since a full-blown war in 2006.
In the West Bank, the Palestinian health ministry said 13 people were killed including five children after Israeli troops raided and called in air strikes on the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm.
The territory, where Palestinians have limited self rule under Israeli military occupation, has seen the deadliest clashes since the second intifada uprising ended in 2005.
Diplomats fear the conflict could spread even further.
The Pentagon on Thursday said a US Navy warship operating in the northern Red Sea intercepted three cruise missiles and several drones launched by the Houthi movement in Yemen, potentially toward Israel.
The Houthi, like Hamas in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, are backed by Iran, which has lauded the Hamas attacks on Israel though it denies being behind them.
Western leaders have so far mostly offered support to Israel’s campaign against Hamas, although there is mounting unease about the plight of civilians in Gaza, which has yet to receive long promised aid.
“We can’t ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have opportunity,” Biden said in his speech.
Israel has said it will allow no aid from its own territory to reach Gaza until more than 200 hostages captured by the gunmen are set free, a position Palestinians say amounts to unlawful collective punishment of the civilian population.
Biden secured a promise from Israel to allow some aid to enter Gaza from Egypt, provided it is monitored to ensure none reaches Hamas. So far, the trucks remain backed up on the Egyptian side of the crossing.
Attendance at pro-Palestine rallies around the nation is expected to surge as images of violence in the Middle East reverberate through Australian communities.
Up to 10,000 people are expected to march through the Sydney CBD on Saturday afternoon after police green-lit the event, and many more are set to attend events in Perth, Hobart and Brisbane as more information emerges from conflict-stricken Gaza.
Sydney protest organiser Fahad Ali says more Australians – including frontbench politicians Ed Husic and Anne Aly – are recognising the gravity of the situation in Gaza.
“Every time there is some kind of event like this, the civilian population of Gaza pays the price,” he told AAP.
Previous protests have been met with a heavy police presence after videos emerged of a small group chanting anti-Semitic slogans within a rally at the Sydney Opera House.
Rallies since have been relatively uneventful with organisers around the country clamping down on hateful comments to ensure the focus remains on their key message: free Palestine.
More pro-Palestine protests will take place in Melbourne and Adelaide on Sunday.
The prime minister has provided $25 million to Jewish and Islamic communities affected by the conflict, and while Mr Ali welcomed the move, he says the government needs to take immediate action to urge a ceasefire, and that humanitarian aid reaches civilians.
“We’re faced with a humanitarian crisis in Palestine – the scale of which we have never seen before,” he said.
“It cannot be the case that we wash our hands of responsibility, when we have played a part in creating the conditions that have led up to this.”
More than 1650 Australians have left Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories since October 7 and commercial flights are available for others who wish to return home.
The foreign affairs department is in contact with registered Australians about departure options.
But the government has previously said there are 46 Australians in Gaza whose safety remains unknown.
— AAP