Israel’s military signaled it had ended major fighting in northern Gaza, saying it had completed dismantling Hamas infrastructure there, as the war against the terror group entered its fourth month on Sunday.
The army did not address future military deployments in northern Gaza. His spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said late Saturday that forces would “continue to deepen achievements” there, strengthening defenses along the Israeli-Gaza border fence and focusing on the central and southern parts of the territory.
The announcement was made ahead of a visit to Israel by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Biden administration officials, including Blinken, have repeatedly called on Israel to halt air and ground strikes in Gaza and shift to more targeted strikes against Hamas leaders to avoid harming Palestinian civilians.
In recent weeks, Israel has scaled back its military offensive in northern Gaza and stepped up its offensive in the south of the territory, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians are squeezed into smaller areas in a humanitarian disaster while pounded by Israeli airstrikes.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu receives a security briefing with commanders and soldiers in the northern Gaza Strip, on Dec. 25, 2023. AP
The war was sparked by a Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel in which terrorists killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took about 250 hostages.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists the war will not end until the objectives of eliminating Hamas, getting the Israeli hostages back and ensuring that Gaza will not be a threat to Israel are met.
Israeli retaliation by air, land and sea has killed more than 22,700 Palestinians and injured more than 58,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza.
The count of dead does not differentiate between combatants and civilians.
Destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza city of Beit Lahia following Israeli bombing on December 26, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
Health officials said about two-thirds of those killed were women and minors.
Israel blames Hamas for many civilian deaths because the group operates in densely populated residential areas.
On Sunday, officials at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis received the bodies of 18 people, including 12 children, who were killed in an Israeli attack late Saturday.
More than 50 people were injured in the attack on a house in the Khan Younis refugee camp, which was established decades ago to house refugees from the 1948 Middle East war over the creation of Israel and turned into a neighborhood in the city.
Israeli retaliation by air, land and sea has killed more than 22,700 Palestinians and injured more than 58,000, according to the Ministry of Health in Hamas-run Gaza. AFP via Getty Images
Another airstrike hit a house between Khan Younis and the southern city of Rafah, killing at least seven people whose bodies were taken to the nearby European Hospital, according to an Associated Press reporter at the facility.
Israeli forces are also moving deeper into the central city of Deir al-Balah, where on Saturday residents in several neighborhoods were warned in leaflets dropped in the city that they must evacuate their homes.
International medical charity Doctors Without Borders, known by its acronym MSF, said it was evacuating medical staff and their families from Deir al-Balah’s Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital because of the growing danger.
“The situation has become so dangerous that some staff who live in neighboring areas cannot leave their homes because of the constant threat of drones and snipers,” said Carolina Lopez, the group’s emergency coordinator at the hospital.
Destroyed buildings in northern Gaza are shown after an attack from Israel on December 27, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
He said bullets pierced the walls of the hospital’s intensive care unit on Friday, and that “drone attacks and sniper fire were just a few hundred meters from the hospital” over the past few days.
The group has about 50 Palestinian and international medical staff at the hospital. Lopez said the hospital has received between 150 and 200 injured people per day in recent weeks. “On some days, we received more deaths than injuries,” he said. “No one and no place is safe in Gaza.”
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Hagari, the military spokesman, said scattered fighting in northern Gaza was expected, along with sporadic rockets fired from there toward Israel.
He said Hamas was no longer operating in an organized manner in the area, but terrorists “without a framework and without a commander” were still there.
The army says it has killed more than 8,000 Hamas fighters, without providing evidence.
AFP via Getty Images
Hagari said Israeli forces would act differently in the south than in northern Gaza, where heavy bombardment and ground fighting flattened entire neighborhoods.
He said the urban refugee camp now targeted by the army was filled with armed men and that a “vast underground city of tunnels” had been discovered under Khan Younis.
He said the military was “using the lessons we learned,” but did not elaborate. Echoing Israeli political leaders, he said the fighting “will continue through 2024.”
His comments about changing the way teams fight seemed to resonate with Blinken, who is on his fourth Middle East trip in three months.
In addition to the appeal to reduce the high-intensity fighting, Blinken has called for more aid to reach Gaza and urged Israeli leaders to come up with a vision for Gaza after the war.
Two US senators inspecting aid shipments over the weekend described a complicated process that has slowed aid to Palestinians in the besieged territory – largely due to Israeli inspections of cargo trucks, with seemingly arbitrary rejections of vital humanitarian equipment.
The family of a friend of an Israeli soldier mourns his death on January 3, 2024. Staff Sergeant Sufian Dagash was killed during fighting in the Gaza Strip. Reuters
The system to ensure aid deliveries in Gaza are not attacked by Israeli forces is “absolutely broken,” said Senators Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, both Democrats.
Meanwhile, the Biden and Netanyahu administrations remain at loggerheads over who should run the territory after the war, with the Israeli leader repeatedly rejecting the idea floated by Washington to form a reformed Palestinian Authority, an autonomous government in the occupied West Bank. finally. govern Gaza.
In a further complication of Blinken’s mission, a new escalation of cross-border fighting between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah has put pressure on US efforts to prevent regional conflagrations.
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli attack on a house in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip January 3, 2024. REUTERS
Saturday’s fighting was described by Hezbollah as an “initial response” to the targeted assassination of a top Hamas leader in the Hezbollah stronghold of the Lebanese capital Beirut last week.
The attack is believed to have been carried out by Israel.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
