Israeli ground forces are already facing Hamas fighters throughout the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army declared this Sunday. A planned ground offensive in the south of the enclave, crowded with refugees, while Israeli bombing left dozens of Palestinians dead and wounded. For its part, the Palestinian armed group said its fighters clashed with Israeli troops about 2 km from the southern city of Khan Younis.
Residents, many of whom had moved there fleeing previous attacks in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said they could hear tank shots and feared a new Israeli ground offensive was brewing.
The Israeli army previously ordered the evacuation of some areas of the city and its surroundings, but did not announce any new ground assault in the south. “The Israel Defense Forces continue to expand their ground operation against Hamas centers throughout the Gaza Strip,” spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in Tel Aviv. “The forces are coming face to face with the terrorists and killing them.”
Early Monday, emergency services said — according to Hamas media — that an Israeli strike had killed three civil emergency workers in Gaza City, in the north of the coastal enclave.
Attacks on ships in the southern Red Sea on Sunday raised fears that the conflict could spread. The U.S. Department of Defense said three commercial ships were attacked by Yemen’s Houthi movement, an ally of Iran, 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 his navy had 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.
The Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, an enclave ruled by Hamas, was one of the places attacked from the air. A spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry said that an Israeli airstrike had killed several people.
Bombing by warplanes and artillery was also concentrated in Khan Younis and Rafah, another southern Gaza city, residents said, and hospitals were struggling to cope with the influx of wounded. Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said the army had attacked more than 400 targets over the weekend “including extensive airstrikes in the Khan Younis area” and had also killed Hamas militants and destroyed their infrastructure in Beit Lahiya, in the north.
The resumption of war came after the end on Friday of a seven-day pause in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, which had allowed the exchange of 105 hostages held by Hamas, most of them Israelis, for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The Israeli government confirmed this Monday the death of 15 of the 137 hostages still held captive by the Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Office released a statement publishing the names of “15 civilians and soldiers who were killed and remain kidnapped in Gaza.”
Thus, there are still 122 hostages alive in Gaza of the more than 240 that Hamas kidnapped during its attack on October 7, according to figures from the Israeli government, which confirmed the death of the 15 hostages based on intelligence information and evidence collected. by the troops deployed in the Strip.
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. US Vice President Kamala Harris telephoned both Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday, reiterating Israel’s right to self-defense and US support for a two-state solution that grant the Palestinian people the right to self-determination.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, more than 15,523 people have been killed in the nearly two months of war that broke out after the Hamas cross-border attack on southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and some 240 were taken as hostages.
Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas. The group, backed by Iran, has sworn the destruction of Israel. The initial attack by Hamas and the subsequent war constitute the bloodiest episode of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.