The Israeli army announced an expansion of its month-old field on Thursday operation in northern Gaza This includes part of Beit Lahiya, a town that has been heavily bombed since the early days of the war, where Israel says Hamas militants have regrouped.
The army said in a statement that “troops began operating” in the Beit Lahiya area after intelligence indicated the presence of militants there. Hamas has repeatedly regrouped in areas where the army has already carried out major operations.
The town in northwest Gaza was one of the first targets of the ground invasion launched more than a year ago, after the Hamas attack in southern Israel. The northern third of the territory has since been surrounded by Israeli forces.
Israel launched another major offensive near Jabaliya, a decades-old urban refugee camp, in early October. He severely limited the amount of aid entering northern Gaza and ordered a complete evacuation. Tens of thousands of people have fled to neighboring Gaza City in the latest mass displacement of the war.
THE Israel-Hamas War began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapping 250 others. The Israeli military response in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, according to Palestinian health officials. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but say that more than half of those killed were women and children.
Palestinian medical sources told Al Jazeera that around 20 people were killed in northern Gaza alone on Thursday amid expanding Israeli operations in Beit Lahiya, including five people killed and five others injured in a raid on a house in the city.
The Israeli military said Thursday it continues to facilitate “the safe evacuation of Palestinians from combat zones in northern Gaza through routes organized for their safety,” after an IDF commander said the army was working to displace all civilians from the northern Gaza Strip. war-torn Palestinian territory indefinitely.
Hamza ZH Qraiqea/Anadolu/Getty
Speaking to reporters Tuesday evening, Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, who commands the IDF’s 162nd Division operating in Gaza, said that since troops were forced to enter certain areas twice, including the camp from Jabaliya, “there is no intention of allowing residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return home. »
He said that humanitarian aid – which the Biden administration has demanded that Israel increase the flow of in Gaza – would be allowed to enter “regularly” in the south of the enclave, but not in the north, because there were, he said, “no more civilians”.
However, according to a United Nations estimate, “between 75,000 and 95,000 people remained in northern Gaza” as of Monday.
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said that around 100,000 people had been forced to flee the region since Israel launched its offensive in northern Gaza, and that “the death toll in the governorate from northern Gaza over the past month would number in the hundreds, if not more than 1,000.” .”
The UN agency said in July that 1.9 million Gaza residents had been forced from their homes.
“In other words, it is estimated that around nine out of ten people in Gaza are now internally displaced, multiple times,” the UN humanitarian agency said.
This number has likely increased since then, given ongoing military operations and routine evacuation orders from Israel.
No sign of slowing down in parallel war between Israel and Hezbollah
Several large Israeli airstrikes hit the southern suburbs of Beirut early Thursday, including one on a site adjacent to Lebanon’s only international airport. The Israeli army had issued an evacuation notice for the site, saying there were Hezbollah installations there, without giving further details.
Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a speech broadcast Wednesday that the Lebanese militant group is only open to ceasefire negotiations once “the enemy stops its aggression.” His speech marks the 40-day mourning period since the former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in Beirut.
Hezbollah began firing on Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Both groups are considered proxy forces backed by Iran, which insisted Thursday that despite Israel’s killing of numerous top commanders, its “Axis of Resistance” against Israel remained strong. Since the start of the conflict, more than 3,000 people have been killed and some 13,600 injured in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry.
Lebanon’s official news agency said an Israeli drone strike hit a car at a military checkpoint in the southern port city of Sidon, killing three people and injuring several others, including UN peacekeepers based in southern Lebanon. The National News Agency said one of the injured was taken to hospital while peacekeepers were treated for minor injuries at the scene of the attack at the northern entrance to Sidon , the third largest city in Lebanon. No information was immediately available on the identities of the deceased.
The United Nations peacekeeping force in the country, UNIFIL, said in a statement that a convoy “bringing newly arrived peacekeepers to southern Lebanon was passing through Saida when a drone strike is produced nearby,” lightly injuring five peacekeepers, who, she said, were treated by the Lebanese Red Cross. doctors on site.
“They will continue to occupy their posts,” UNIFIL said of the convoy troops, adding: “We remind all actors of their obligation to avoid any action that endangers peacekeepers or civilians.” Disputes must be resolved at the negotiating table and not through violence.
A drone strike hit a car on a main highway just outside Beirut on Thursday, killing a woman, according to local media.
