Israel-Hamas war: Fierce battles reported in northern Gaza

The Israeli military said it opened a new crossing for humanitarian aid going into the Gaza Strip in coordination with the United States.

The crossing, called Western Erez, was opened in the north of the Palestinian territory.

It comes as the key entry point for aid remains shut. 

Earlier this week, Israeli troops took control of the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, forcing it to shut down. 

The Israeli military said it was fighting Hamas militants in eastern Rafah near the crossing.

Egypt said it would join South Africa's case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said the move comes because of "the worsening severity and scope of the Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians."

In December, South Africa brought a case to the ICJ claiming Israel was committing the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip, a charge Israel rejected as "baseless."

The ICJ ordered Israel in January to take all measures within its power to prevent forces from committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. It also instructed Israel to take action to protect Palestinian civilians from further harm and allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory while it considers the broader case. 

Egypt, along with the United States and Qatar, had been mediating between Israel and Hamas.

Talks for a truce and hostage exchange deal, however, stalled earlier this week amid Israeli military action in the southern Gaza city of Rafah. 

Israel took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, an operation that has halted humanitarian aid deliveries via the facility into Gaza.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned against Israel's growing offensive in Rafah.

He told US network ABC News on Sunday, Israel lacked a "credible plan" to protect more than 1 million civilians sheltering there.

Blinken said US President Joe Biden made clear to Israel that if it "launches this major military operation to Rafah, then there are certain systems that we're not going to be supporting and supplying for that operation." 

The president has repeatedly warned against the operation and said the US would suspend supplies of artillery shells and other weapons if it goes ahead. 

"We have real concerns about the way they're used," Blinken continued. Israel needs to "have a clear, credible plan to protect civilians, which we haven't seen," Blinken noted. 

In a separate interview with the US network CBS News, he said Israel may "have some initial success, but potentially at an incredibly high cost to civilians."

Israel would "be left holding the bag on an enduring insurgency" without an exit from Gaza and no postwar governance plan, Blinken warned. 

Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Israel can "stand-alone" despite the US' warnings. 

Two doctors were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Palestinian city of Deir al-Balah, Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Sunday. 

"The bodies of Doctor Muhammad Nimr Qazaat and his son, Doctor Youssef, were recovered [after they were killed] because of an Israeli raid on the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip," the agency said.

Israel's military offensive in Gaza has now killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory's Health Ministry. 

There were at least 63 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, bringing the death toll from Israel's bombardment and offensive in Gaza to at least 35,034.

The UN and multiple humanitarian organizations consider the casualty numbers broadly reliable.

Israel's launched a ground operation in Gaza after Hamas and other militant groups staged an attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on October 7 last year. They also took another 250 people as hostages. 

Israeli media report that the country's troops are engaged in fierce fighting with armed Palestinian militants in the north of the Gaza Strip.

The Haaretz newspaper reported that the Israeli army had confirmed that forces of the 98th Brigade raided Jabaliya overnight into Sunday.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari previously said that warplanes had attacked targets in Jabaliya, a densely populated area that was once a refugee camp, after the civilian population there had been told to evacuate.

The Times of Israel on Sunday said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had called for an estimated 100,000-150,000 Palestinians in the Jabaliya area to leave.

The militant organization Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the US, Germany and others, cited heavy clashes between its fighters and Israeli forces in the area of Jabaliya, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north of Gaza City. 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has expressed "extreme concern" about the calls for evacuation of both Jabaliya as well as Rafah in the south. 

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza, urging the return of hostages and a "surge" in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.

"I repeat my call, the world's call, for an immediate humanitarian cease-fire, the unconditional release of all hostages and an immediate surge in humanitarian aid. But a ceasefire will only be the start. It will be a long road back from the devastation and trauma of this war," Guterres said on Sunday in a video address to an international donors' conference in Kuwait.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes on Gaza continued after an evacuation order for Rafah was expanded despite international concerns over Israel’s military incursion into eastern areas of the city, effectively cutting a key aid crossing.

"The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and rendering huge numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatized," Guterres said.

dvv,rc/lo (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)