[1/9]Palestinians inspect a house destroyed in an Israeli attack amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, December 4, 2023. Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa LICENSES
- LATEST DEVELOPMENTS:
- Israel said the military death toll from ground operations in the Gaza Strip was 76
GAZA/CAIRO, Dec 4 (Portal) – The Israeli military said its troops were facing Hamas militants across the Gaza Strip, suggesting its planned ground offensive had begun in the refugee-filled south of the enclave as Israeli bombings killed dozens of Palestinians killed and wounded.
The renewed war followed the end of a seven-day standoff in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants on Friday, which had facilitated an exchange of 105 hostages held by Hamas, most of them Israelis, for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The latest violence came despite calls from the United States – Israel’s closest ally – for Israel to limit damage to Palestinian civilians in the new phase of its offensive focused on the south.
Gaza residents said Sunday they feared an Israeli ground offensive on the southern areas was imminent. Tanks had cut off the road between Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip, effectively dividing the Gaza Strip into three parts.
On Monday morning, the Israeli military announced
Israel says it is defining “safe areas” for civilians in the Gaza Strip to minimize harm to them. But UN officials and people in Gaza say it is difficult to follow these orders in real time due to spotty internet access and unreliable electricity.
Lebanon-based Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Sunday: “There are no safe areas.”
Bombardments by warplanes and artillery were also concentrated in Khan Younis and Rafah, another southern Gaza town, according to residents, and hospitals struggled to cope with the influx of wounded.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said the military struck more than 400 targets over the weekend, “including extensive airstrikes in the Khan Younis area,” and also killed Hamas militants and destroyed their infrastructure in Beit Lahiya in the north.
There was initially no comment on the reports of specific attacks.
Widespread clashes
On Sunday, Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops about 2 km (1 mile) from the southern town of Khan Younis.
“The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) continues to expand its ground operations against Hamas centers across the Gaza Strip,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in Tel Aviv. “The armed forces face terrorists and kill them.”
Israel announced on Monday that the military death toll from ground operations in the Gaza Strip had risen to 76.
Early Monday, Hamas media quoted emergency services as saying an Israeli strike had killed three civilian rescue workers in Gaza City, in the northern coastal enclave.
The Jabalia refugee camp in the north of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip was among the locations reported to have been hit from the air on Sunday.
A spokesman for Gaza’s health ministry said several people were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Footage obtained by Portal showed a boy covered in gray dust as he sat crying among crumbled cement and rubble of collapsed buildings.
“My father has become a martyr,” he cried in a hoarse voice. A girl in a pink sweatshirt, also covered in dust, stood among piles of rubble.
SHIPPING ATTACKS
Attacks on ships in the southern Red Sea on Sunday increased fears of an escalation of the conflict.
The U.S. Defense Department said three merchant ships were attacked by Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement in international waters of the Red Sea, and a U.S. destroyer operating in the area shot down three drones while responding to distress calls.
A Houthi spokesman said its navy attacked two Israeli ships in the Red Sea on Sunday with an armed drone and a missile, although an Israeli military spokesman said the two ships had no connection to Israel.
More than 15,523 people have been killed, according to Gaza’s health ministry, in the nearly two-month war that broke out after a cross-border attack by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 240 hostage. According to Israel, Hamas continues to hold 136 hostages.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas. The Iran-backed group is sworn to destroy Israel. The first Hamas attack and the war that followed represent the bloodiest episode in the decades-long larger Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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Reporting by Suhaib Salem and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Mohammed Salem and Roleen Tafakji in Gaza, Maayan Lubell, Ari Rabinovich and Emily Rose in Jerusalem, Maggie Fick in Beirut, Andrew Mills in Doha, Nandita Bose in Dubai, Idrees Ali, Steve Holland and Phil Stewart in Washington; writing by David Lawder and Lincoln Feast; Edited by Stephen Coates
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