The Israeli army on Thursday bombarded the Gaza Strip where fighting is raging in Shujaiya in the north and Rafah in the south, after an evacuation order in this region which has pushed tens of thousands of Palestinians into a new exodus.
On Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, a powerful Islamist movement allied with Palestinian Hamas, have raised fears of an extension of the war.
On Thursday, the army issued warnings of rockets and air raids throughout northern Israel, including the occupied Golan Heights, a day after Hezbollah fired on it and Israel killed one of its commanders.
Hezbollah claimed to have fired more than 200 rockets at several Israeli targets.
Nearly nine months into the war in the Gaza Strip, Hamas said it had sent mediating countries new “ideas” to end it, which Israel said it was “evaluating.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Tuesday that the war would not end until its objectives had been “achieved”, including “the destruction of Hamas and the release of all the hostages” taken on October 7 during the attack carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel.
Bombings and fighting continue unabated across the territory despite Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on June 23 that the “intense” phase of the war was near.
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A Palestinian couple holds their children in their arms as they walk through debris in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 4, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
A third of the territory
Following a new evacuation order issued by the Israeli army on Monday, tens of thousands of Palestinians left areas of eastern Rafah and Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, throwing themselves onto the roads in search of water, food and shelter.
“We left, but we don’t know where to go. It’s very hard, it’s very hot and we have children with us,” said Umm Malek Al-Najjar, a woman who left eastern Khan Younis.
The largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, from which the army withdrew in early April after a months-long battle, has now been reduced to rubble.
The call to evacuate, which concerns 250,000 people in an area of 117 square kilometres, or a third of the Gaza Strip, is “the most significant” since that addressed to the inhabitants of northern Gaza in the early days of the war, the UN stressed.
On Thursday, fighting accompanied by explosions raged in the Shabura camp in Rafah, according to Palestinian sources, while artillery fire was reported in Yabna, another Palestinian camp in the city, and in eastern Khan Younis.
Israel has not indicated whether there will be a major new operation in the south, but its evacuation orders are usually a preamble to intense fighting.
PHOTO MOHAMMED SALEM, REUTERS
Displaced Palestinians take shelter in a UN-run school that was damaged in the Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 4, 2024.
After advancing from the north, the army launched a ground operation on May 7 in the town of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, then presented as the last stage of the war, which had forced a million Palestinians to flee.
But in recent weeks, fighting has resumed in several areas the army had said it controlled.
On Thursday, the army announced that it had “eliminated dozens of terrorists and destroyed more than 50 terrorist targets” since the previous day. It added that it was continuing its operations, particularly underground, in Shujaiya in the north, and was carrying out “targeted operations” in Rafah.
The army launched a ground operation on June 27 in Shujaiya, an eastern district of Gaza City, which led to the displacement of 60,000 to 80,000 people, according to the UN.
On Thursday, Israeli artillery fire targeted Shujaiya, where, according to Palestinian sources, fighting was taking place between soldiers and Palestinian fighters.
A shelling raid killed three people in the Al-Daraj neighborhood in eastern Gaza City, according to the Civil Defense. Artillery fire was also reported in the central Gaza Strip.
“Our houses were razed”
“We fled Shujaiya five days ago after being woken up by the sound of tanks. Our homes were razed to the ground,” said Umm Bashar al-Jamal, a 42-year-old woman sheltering in a stadium in Gaza City.
The war was triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 116 are still being held in Gaza, of whom 42 have died, according to the army.
In response, Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. The Israeli offensive in Gaza has so far killed 37,953 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
The war has caused a humanitarian disaster in the besieged territory, where water and food are in short supply, aid is arriving in insufficient quantities and 1.9 million people, or 80% of the population, are now displaced according to the UN.