'Horror and fear': Nowhere safe for displaced Gazans as Israeli forces bombard the south ABS-CBN News

Palestinians in Gaza were told to move to south for their own safety by the Israeli military but shells are falling on the southern city of Khan Younis, where hundreds of people were searching for bodies after Israeli strikes on Thursday. Around midday on Thursday, according to officials at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Israel bombed an area not far from an UNRWA shelter for displaced people, killing at least 18 people and causing panic among the displaced. Hamas's Al-Aqsa radio station earlier reported that Nasser hospital received the bodies of 77 people killed in air strikes overnight, most of them women and children. Israel did not respond directly to the report but said its forces had struck a Hamas missile launch post in the Khan Younis area that was next to a mosque and kindergarten. It was not clear if both sides were referring to the same incident. UNRWA has set up new tents in Khan Younis. But with the border closure and no ceasefire the agency is in increasingly desperate need for shelter, water, food and medical services. The agency has warned that it may have to shut down its operations if more aid and fuel does not come through. “Horror and fear. We are scared to death. But the agency (UNRWA) says this place is safe to shelter in," said Ahmed Hamouda, who evacuated from Jabalia refugee camp in the north, and is now sheltering at UNRWA with his five children. Mahmoud Shameya, who has been sheltering at the UNRWA camp with his wife and three children, said they lived in constant horror because of the ongoing bombing. "They told us to get out of here (Northern Gaza) to protect our lives, and I actually left the place, but explosives are around us here everywhere. Where should we go?" said Mahmoud Shameya. More than 613,000 people made homeless by the war between Israel and Iran-backed Hamas are sheltering in 150 UNRWA facilities across the impoverished territory, one of the world's most densely populated places.

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