Israel strikes ‘200 targets’ as IDF expands its operations throughout Gaza

The Israeli navy says it struck ‘200 terror targets’ on Sunday because it introduced an enlargement of floor operations in opposition to Hamas to cowl all of Gaza, with stories of dozens of tanks crossing the border into the southern a part of the Strip this morning.

‘IDF troops struck terror infrastructure positioned inside a college in Beit Hanoun, from which an assault on the troops was carried out. In the compound have been two tunnel shafts, together with a booby-trapped one, explosives, and extra weapons,’ the IDF claimed. 

It additionally stated it had destroyed a whole lot of Hamas tunnels because the begin of its operation in Gaza, utilizing explosives and blocks to break down the routes or seal the entrances, with Israeli troopers now shifting south to proceed their operations.  

For weeks, Israel has warned civilians in Gaza to maneuver south within the enclave as their battles in opposition to Hamas raged within the north, and it continued to be labelled as a safer choice regardless of steady Israeli bombing of Khan Younis and different areas.

Now, the IDF has declared that it’s preventing ‘strongly and completely’ within the southern half of Gaza, with warnings to displaced civilians to evacuate even additional south away from the preventing.

Eyewitnesses informed native media this morning {that a} battalion of Israeli tanks appeared headed for Khan Younis – the place the IDF claims a number of Hamas commanders are holed up – with armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers additionally seen.

Amin Abu Hola, 59, stated the Israeli automobiles have been ‘two kilometres (1.2 miles) inside’ the Palestinian territory within the village of Al-Qarara close to Khan Younis, whereas Moaz Mohammed, 34, stated Israeli tanks have been on the southern a part of Salah al-Din highway which runs from the north to the south of the strip.

Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi stated on Sunday: ‘Yesterday, and right this moment, we eradicated brigade commanders, firm commanders, many operatives, and yesterday morning we began the identical course of within the southern Gaza Strip.’

The IDF stated their operations within the south could be of ‘no much less power’ than its offensive within the north, and that Hamas commanders ‘will meet the IDF in all places in a really, very robust approach’.

Hamas reported on Sunday that its fighters clashed with Israeli troops round one mile from Khan Younis, and video on Arabic social media appeared to corroborate the accounts of tanks headed for the southern metropolis.

Residents, a lot of whom had moved to southern Gaza to flee earlier assaults within the Israel-Palestinian battle, stated they might hear tank fireplace and feared a brand new Israeli floor offensive was constructing. 

On Sunday night time Israel additionally introduced it had eradicated a key Hamas determine who had organised the October 7 assaults. In an announcement it stated an IDF jet has struck and killed Commander Haitham Khuwajari, head of Hamas’ Shati Battalion. 

As the struggle moved into its 58th day leaflets have been dropped on to the Gaza Strip urging folks to maneuver additional south and maps have been posted on social media displaying folks protected routes.

More than 1.8 million folks out of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants are stated to be displaced throughout a strip of land 25 miles lengthy and seven.4 miles at its widest level. 

The Israeli navy earlier ordered folks to evacuate some areas in and close to Khan Younis, however has solely now introduced a full-scale floor assault within the south.

‘The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) continues to increase its floor operation in opposition to Hamas centres in all the Gaza Strip,’ spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari informed reporters in Tel Aviv. 

‘The forces are coming nose to nose with terrorists and killing them.’

Israel this weekend revealed it had carried out greater than 10,000 airstrikes on the strip because the struggle began. 

The Jabalia refugee camp within the north of Hamas-ruled Gaza was among the many websites reported to have been hit from the air. 

A spokesperson for the Hamas-run well being ministry in Gaza stated a number of folks have been killed by an Israeli airstrike.

Footage obtained by Reuters confirmed a boy lined in gray mud, sitting weeping amid crumbled cement and rubble from collapsed buildings.

‘My father was martyred,’ he cried in a hoarse voice. A woman in a pink sweatshirt, additionally coated with mud, stood between piles of rubble.

Bombardments from struggle planes and artillery have been additionally targeting Khan Younis and Rafah, one other metropolis in Gaza’s south, residents and well being officers have stated, and hospitals have been struggling to deal with the circulation of wounded.

Israeli authorities spokesperson Eylon Levy stated the navy had struck greater than 400 targets over the weekend ‘together with in depth aerial assaults within the Khan Younis space’ and had additionally killed Hamas fighters and destroyed their infrastructure in Beit Lahiya within the north.

An adviser to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that Israel is making ‘most effort’ to keep away from killing civilians. 

Pictures have proven severely injured youngsters lined in blood on the Nasser Medical Hospital in Khan Younis, which James Elder, from the youngsters’s company Unicef, described as a ‘warzone’.

He informed the BBC that youngsters have been arriving with head accidents, horrible burns and shrapnel from latest blasts.

‘It’s a hospital I’ve gone to commonly and the youngsters know me now, the households know me now. Those similar individuals are grabbing my hand, or grabbing my shirt saying “please take us somewhere safe. Where is safe?”‘

‘They are sadly asking a query to which the one reply is there may be nowhere protected. And that features for them, as they know, that hospital,’ he stated.

He informed the BBC that he may hear ‘fixed giant explosions’ near the hospital.

Gaza’s Hamas-run well being ministry says greater than 500 folks have been killed since bombing resumed after the tip of a seven-day pause within the preventing on Friday.

The non permanent truce between Israeli forces and Hamas, which had allowed an change of 105 hostages held by Hamas, most of them Israelis, for 240 Palestinian prisoners.

The newest violence passed off regardless of calls from the United States – thought of Israel’s closest ally – for the nation to restrict hurt to Palestinian civilians within the new part of its offensive, targeted on the south.

More than 15,523 folks have been killed, in keeping with Gaza’s well being ministry, in almost two months of warfare that broke out after a Hamas cross-border raid on southern Israel on October 7 through which 1,200 Israelis have been killed and round 240 taken hostage. Israel says Hamas continues to carry 136 hostages.

Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas. The Iranian-backed group is sworn to Israel’s destruction. 

The preliminary Hamas assault and the following struggle quantity to the bloodiest episode within the decades-old wider Israel-Palestinian battle.

Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, accused Israel of pursuing a deliberate technique of urging Gazan civilians south so as to entice and kill them there.

‘It has turn into clear that the occupation’s declare… of the existence of protected areas within the south of the Gaza Strip, and its fixed name for residents to go there, was a premeditated plan and entice to commit extra massacres in opposition to unarmed civilians and displaced folks within the south,’ he informed reporters with out citing proof. ‘There aren’t any protected areas.’

The Israeli navy didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark however has persistently stated it’s concentrating on Hamas navy strongholds and has requested civilians to maneuver to protected zones to allow them to get humanitarian support.

The Israeli navy ordered Palestinians to evacuate a number of areas in and round Khan Younis. It posted a map highlighting shelters they need to go to west of Khan Younis and south towards Rafah, on the border with Egypt.

Many residents began packing however stated that areas they’d been informed to go to have been themselves coming beneath assault.

Nabil Al-Ghandour informed Reuters he and his household would depart Khan Younis for Rafah in a while Sunday, their fifth transfer seeking security because the battle began.

‘We cannot see any protected areas,’ he stated. ‘But we transfer as a result of what can we do? We have youngsters and all night time there’s shelling.’

Later on Sunday, a Gazan well being ministry official stated seven folks have been killed in an air strike on a home in Rafah. The Israeli navy didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

The Israeli navy stated on Sunday its struggle planes and helicopters had struck Hamas targets together with tunnel shafts, command centres and weapons storage services. Naval forces had hit Hamas vessels on the coast, it stated.

The navy declined to present figures on the variety of air strikes carried out.

On one other entrance, Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters traded fireplace throughout the Israel-Lebanon border and Israel stated a number of of its troopers have been wounded when an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon hit a automobile within the Beit Hillel space of northern Israel. Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the accounts.