--- title: "85 % of Gaza’s Inhabitants Driven From Their Homes, Israel’s Op covers most of Gaza" type: "post" post_id: "5348" slug: "85-of-gazas-inhabitants-driven-from-their-homes-israels-op-covers-most-of-gaza" canonical: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/12/28/85-of-gazas-inhabitants-driven-from-their-homes-israels-op-covers-most-of-gaza/" markdown_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/12/28/85-of-gazas-inhabitants-driven-from-their-homes-israels-op-covers-most-of-gaza.md" json_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/12/28/85-of-gazas-inhabitants-driven-from-their-homes-israels-op-covers-most-of-gaza.json" txt_url: "https://pennyforyourthoughts2.ca/2023/12/28/85-of-gazas-inhabitants-driven-from-their-homes-israels-op-covers-most-of-gaza.txt" published: "2023-12-28T23:39:01+00:00" modified: "2023-12-28T23:39:01+00:00" author: "penny2" categories: - "Uncategorized" tags: - "Israel" - "Palestine" - "perception management" - "state sponsored terrorism" site_name: "PFYT2" publisher: "" language: "en-US" generator: "easyPress Markdown" generator_version: "1.0.6" --- **This isn’t about Hamas. That was the excuse. The means to the end. The end is taking over the desirable land lots of beach front property and energy resources in the sea.** **Israel has coveted those energy resources for a very long time.` `**`This is ethnic cleansing. Calling the situation exactly as I see it.` [**Link**](https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/12/28/israels-hamas-operation-now-covers-most-of-the-gaza-strip/) **Israeli forces bombarded cities, towns and refugee camps across Gaza on Thursday, killing dozens of people in a widening air and ground offensive** **`The war has already killed over 20,000 Palestinians and driven around 85% of the population of 2.3 million from their homes. Much of northern Gaza has been leveled, and it has been largely depopulated and isolated from the rest of the territory for weeks.` `Many fear a similar fate awaits the south as Israel expands its offensive to most of the tiny enclave.`** **Israeli officials have brushed off international calls for a cease-fire, saying it would amount to a victory for Hamas.** **STRIKES FROM NORTH TO SOUTH** An Israeli airstrike on a home in the northern town of Beit Lahiyeh — one of the first targets of the ground invasion that began in October — buried at least 21 people, including women and children, according to a family member. Bassel Kheir al-Din, a journalist with a local TV station, said the strike flattened his family house and severely damaged three neighboring homes. He said 12 members of his family — including three children ages 2, 7 and 8 — were buried and presumed dead, and that nine neighbors were missing. In central Gaza, Israeli warplanes and artillery pounded the built-up Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps, leveling buildings, residents said. Israel said this week it would expand its ground offensive into central Gaza. The Israeli military typically launches waves of airstrikes and shelling before troops and tanks move in. A hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah received the bodies of 25 people killed overnight, including five children and seven women, hospital records showed Thursday. Nonstop explosions could be heard throughout the night in the town where hundreds of thousands of people have sought shelter, with many spending cold nights sleeping on sidewalks. “It was another night of killing and massacres,” said Saeed Moustafa, a resident of the Nuseirat camp. He said people were still crying out from the rubble of a house hit Wednesday by an airstrike. “We are unable to get them out. We hear their screams, but we don’t have equipment,” he said. **ANOTHER WAVE OF DISPLACEMENT** **Rami Abu Mosab, who lives in the Bureij refugee camp, said thousands of people have fled their homes in recent days because of the intense bombardment. He plans to remain there because nowhere in Gaza is safe.** **“Here is death and there is death,” he said, “To die in your home is better.”** **Bureij and Nuseirat are among several camps across the region that were built to house hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation. They have since grown into crowded residential neighborhoods.** **Some 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes during that conflict, an exodus the Palestinians refer to as the Nakba, or catastrophe. `Some 1.9 million have been displaced within Gaza since Oct. 7.`** As Israel has broadened its offensive, **fleeing Palestinians have packed into areas along the Egyptian border and the southern Mediterranean coastline, where shelters and tent camps are overflowing. Even in those areas, Israel continues to strike** what it says are militant targets. > **The military says it has killed thousands of militants, without presenting evidence**…. **The military says it has killed thousands of militants, without presenting evidence,** and that 167 of its soldiers have been killed and hundreds wounded in the ground offensive.