Backed by the air force, Israeli soldiers carried out operations against the Palestinian Hamas in the city of Gaza on Friday, forcing tens of thousands of people to flee, in the ninth month of the war which has raised fears of a regional conflagration.
On the Israeli-Lebanese border, attacks by Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, against Israeli positions and those of the Israeli army against targets in Lebanon continued, with the Lebanese movement reporting the death of four fighters.
The major Israeli offensive in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement against Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
And fears of seeing this conflict spread to Lebanon have increased after an escalation of violence on the Israeli-Lebanese border and threats.
The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the small Palestinian territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, besieged since October 9 by Israel: water and food are lacking, most hospitals are out of service, entire neighborhoods are destroyed. and 37,765 were killed there according to data from the Ministry of Health of the government, led by Hamas in power since 2007 in Gaza.
In eastern Gaza City (north), the army announced an operation in Shujaiya after information on a “presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructures” in this sector. Soldiers entered and military planes targeted “dozens of Hamas terrorist sites.”
Columns of smoke rose above Shujaiya after airstrikes and shelling, according to an AFP correspondent.
The operation began Thursday with artillery and helicopter fire as well as clashes between soldiers and fighters.
Civil Defense and witnesses reported “numerous deaths”.
– “That’s enough!” –
“Tens of thousands of civilians” have fled the area, Civil Defense said, after a call from the army to evacuate and while no place is safe in the Gaza Strip according to the UN.
“Enough! We are devastated. We have lost our children and our homes, and we continue to flee from one place to another,” said a Palestinian woman as she left the area.
Israeli strikes targeted other areas of northern Gaza, “eliminating dozens of terrorists hiding in schools of UNRWA,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the army said.
In central Gaza, medical sources reported three deaths including a girl in Deir el-Balah and artillery fire was heard in Nousseirat. In the south, artillery fire targeted Khan Younes and Rafah.
The army announced the death of a 19-year-old soldier in southern Gaza, bringing to 314 the number of soldiers killed since the start of the ground offensive in the Palestinian territory on October 27.
On May 7, Israeli troops launched a ground offensive in Rafah, then presented by Israel as the last major Hamas stronghold. But fighting has resumed in several other regions, especially in the north where pockets of Hamas remain.
– “Dozens of Katyusha rockets” –
After the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel promised to destroy the Islamist movement which it considers a terrorist organization, as did the United States and the European Union.
On Thursday, Israelis hostile to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war took to the streets again to call for the release of the hostages.
During the Hamas attack on October 7, 251 people were kidnapped, 116 of whom are still being held in Gaza, of whom 42 died, according to the army
In the aftermath of this attack, Hezbollah opened a front with Israel in support of the Palestinian movement, and since then, exchanges of fire in the border areas have been almost daily and sometimes very intense.
On Thursday, Hezbollah announced that four of its fighters had been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon and claimed responsibility for three attacks on military positions in northern Israel, including one with “dozens of Katyusha rockets” on an “anti-missile airbase.”
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that Israel did not want a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but warned that his country had “the capacity to take Lebanon back to the Stone Age” in the event of a conflict.
The United States, the UN and France in particular have warned against a war in Lebanon.
