Israel says it has gained almost complete operational control of the northern Gaza Strip and is preparing to expand a ground offensive against Hamas militants to other areas.
CAIRO/JERUSALEM –
Israel bombed areas of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip overnight and fighting raged throughout Sunday morning, Palestinian residents and media said, while Gaza health authorities and the Israeli army reported a rising death toll.
Israel says it has gained almost complete operational control of the northern Gaza Strip and is preparing to expand a ground offensive against Hamas militants to other areas. However, residents of Jabalia reported continued airstrikes and artillery attacks by Israeli tanks, which they said moved deeper into the city on Saturday.
A spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry said on Sunday that 166 Palestinians had died in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of Palestinian deaths to 20,424.
Tens of thousands were injured and many bodies are said to lie under the rubble. Almost all of Gaza's 2.3 million residents have been displaced.
The Israeli military said eight soldiers were killed, bringing to 154 the number of published combat casualties since the ground assault began in response to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, in which the militants killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.
Also read Israeli strikes kill more than 90 Palestinians as fighting escalates in southern Gaza Strip
The White House reported that US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the Israeli election campaign.
Biden “emphasized the urgent need to protect civilians, including those supporting the humanitarian response, and the importance of allowing civilians to safely escape from ongoing combat zones,” the White House said in a news release. “Leaders discussed the importance of ensuring the release of all remaining hostages.”
Israel's main ally maintained its support while expressing concern about the death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. U.S. officials said they expect Israel to soon move into a lower-intensity phase.
At a weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu dismissed reports that the United States had persuaded Israel not to expand its military operations.
Israel has long urged residents to leave the northern areas of the Gaza Strip, but its forces have shelled targets in the central and southern parts of the enclave.
Six Palestinians were killed and several injured in an Israeli airstrike on a house in the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army ordered people to evacuate and head west toward the city of Deir Al-Balah, doctors said.
Gaza with more than 20,000 dead and 93% of the population starving
Yiftah Ron-Tal, a former commander of Israel's ground forces, described the battlefield in Gaza as “the most complex and fortified” in the world, requiring infantry, tanks, artillery and engineer troops.
“I think what is happening now is the result of a tough fight in a densely populated area, and in this type of fight, unfortunately, there are a lot of casualties,” he told Army Radio.
The conflict has widened as Yemen's Iran-allied Houthi forces complicate global trade with missile and drone attacks on ships in the Red Sea in retaliation for Israel's attack on Gaza.
The United States shot down four drones fired from Houthi-controlled areas in Yemen at a U.S. destroyer in the southern Red Sea on Saturday, bringing the number of such attacks on merchant ships to 15, according to U.S. Central Command.
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