Israel presses assault in southern Gaza, Jordan says field hospital badly damaged

GAZA/ISRAEL-GAZA BORDER/DOHA, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Israel pressed its assault on Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Wednesday, sending tanks westwards and prompting accusations from Jordan that its field hospital in the city had been badly damaged by nearby shelling.

The Jordanian army said it held Israel responsible for a "flagrant breach of international law" in what it said was the damage to the facility as a result of Israeli shelling in the vicinity. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.  

People in and around another hospital, Nasser, fled as tanks approached the district overnight following an Israeli army statement that it had come under fire from the area.

Palestinian health officials said seven people were killed by Israeli air strikes that damaged homes near the hospital, one of only a third of Gaza's hospitals still partially operational.

Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said extra field hospitals were expected to be up and running in the coming days.  

"These have of course been necessitated by Hamas' strategic militarization of Gaza's existing hospitals," he said, adding this showed that Hamas militants were the ones breaching international law. Hamas denies using hospitals for cover.

Explosions from shelling and air strikes sounded further west in Khan Younis as the Israeli tanks moved on, with lines of thick black smoke rising from bomb sites.

Israel said it had killed six Palestinian fighters, including the southern district Hamas officer in charge of interrogating suspected spies.

The military said in a statement summarising its latest operations that the killing of counter-espionage officer Bilal Nofal "significantly impacts the terrorist organisation's capacity to develop and enhance its capabilities".

Further south in Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people have moved on Israeli advice, people cried over several shrouded bodies, including of a young girl, Masa.

"We were asleep and then we found the missiles falling on us. We got up and couldn't see anything. We started checking on each other. The girl was martyred," said her aunt, Tahreer Shoman, adding that her siblings had been wounded but survived.

In central Gaza, the Israeli military said it killed militants in Deir al-Balah who tried to fire mortars at its forces and in the area of Bureij, from which it said 25 rockets had been fired on Tuesday, soldiers apprehended seven militants and killed several others and destroyed rocket launchers.

Fighting also raged in densely populated Jabalia in northern Gaza on Wednesday, a day after Israeli tanks stormed backinto parts of the north they had left last week.

Israel had announced in early January it was scaling back operations in the north of the Palestinian enclave as part of what it said would be a more targeted approach in its war against Hamas after operations that flattened entire residential districts.

At least $15 billion will be needed just to rebuild houses in Gaza, the head of the Palestine Investment Fund, Mohammed Mustafa, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, without taking into account the extensive damage to basic infrastructure and hospitals.

Israel's military campaign has left the entire population of Gaza facing crisis levels of hunger and at growing risk from disease as supplies run low, aid agencies say.

"If the war in Gaza continues, more people are likely to die of hunger or famine than war," Mustafa said.

Aid destined for Palestinian residents and Israeli hostages held in Gaza arrived in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula on Wednesday under a deal brokered by France and Qatar, Egyptian security and Red Crescent officials said.

The head of the United Nations' relief agency UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini, described desperate scenes of overcrowding in Rafah on the Egyptian border, where he said more than 1.2 million people were now seeking shelter from the fighting.

With "the struggle for survival consuming every hour", Gazans are trying to protect themselves from the cold and rain using makeshift structures of plastic sheeting, said Lazzarini in a post on the UNRWA website, renewing his call for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Communications were down across Gaza on Wednesday for a sixth day, leaving its Palestinian inhabitants, most of whom have been forced to flee several times, unable to receive warnings on social media from the movement of Israeli forces.

Palestinian health officials said 163 Gazans had been reported killed over the past 24 hours, taking the death toll to 24,448 in Israel's war on Gaza, now in its fourth month.

Israel reported two more soldiers killed, taking the toll since it began ground operations in Gaza to 193.

Israel says it has killed 9,000 Hamas militants and has vowed to "eliminate" the enclave's Hamas rulers after gunmen stormed into southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies. On Wednesday, Israel adjusted the number of people it says were taken hostage on Oct. 7 to 253 from 240.

Around half of the hostages were released in an October truce during which some Palestinian prisoners were also freed.

The war has had serious international repercussions, including strikes on shipping in the Red Sea by the Iran-aligned Houthis who control much of Yemen. The Houthis say the attacks, which have disrupted global trade flows, are intended to demonstrate solidarity with the Palestinians.

On Wednesday they said the strikes would continue despite the Biden administration putting the militia back on its list of terrorist groups.