The Israeli army said on Sunday it was “surrounding” the area of Jabaliya, in the north of Gaza, which it also shelled from the sky, estimating that Palestinian Hamas is rebuilding its capabilities there, despite months of fighting and bombings.
• Also read: Israeli army announces rocket “fire” from Gaza Strip
• Also read: Iran has prepared its response in the event of an Israeli strike
• Also read: Iran’s allies will ‘not back down’ from Israel, Iranian guide warns
The Civil Defense of the Gaza Strip reported on Sunday at least 17 dead in these strikes, including nine children.
The war in the Gaza Strip was sparked by the unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, after which Israel vowed to “annihilate” the Palestinian Islamist movement by launching a devastating offensive that is still ongoing in the besieged Palestinian territory. where Hamas took power in 2007.
In recent months, Israeli soldiers have returned to areas they had previously claimed to control, saying they were confronted with reconstituting groups of fighters.
On Sunday, the army said it was surrounding the Jabaliya area in view of intelligence on “the presence of terrorists” pointing to “Hamas’ efforts to rebuild its operational capabilities” in the area.
It said it had carried out airstrikes against “dozens of targets” in “support of ground troops”, including “weapons storage facilities”.
“It was a bloody night in Gaza, as if we were returning to the first days of the war,” Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP, according to whom the 17 people killed all belonged to the same family.
According to him, the Israeli army launched a total of “more than 50 airstrikes” on “different areas” of the territory, where the population was seeking in vain to seek safety.
“The bombings are very violent, we don’t know where they come from, we don’t know where to go,” Jamil al-Habibi, who is fleeing the area’s surroundings, told AFP.
Since the start of the war, the Israeli army has targeted Jabaliya and its surroundings several times.
An AFP photographer noted that families were arriving in Gaza City from Jabaliya, carrying bags and cans of water.
“We are really exhausted,” says Ahmed, 50, among them: “Where can we take our young children?”
The army said it was extending today’s operation to the Al-Mawasi area, along the coast in the south of the Gaza Strip, an area it describes as safe, which Gazans dispute.
“Two humanitarian evacuation routes from the northern Gaza Strip have been reopened: one, along the Salaheddine road, and the other, along the al-Rashid coastal road,” he said. she detailed.
In another statement, she claimed to have carried out a “precise strike” on Hamas fighters from “a command center” in a mosque in the center of the Gaza Strip.
At least 26 people were killed in these strikes on the “Ibn Rushd school and the al-Aqsa martyrs’ mosque” housing people displaced by the war, according to the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip.
Witnesses reported to AFP correspondents Israeli strikes on other localities, notably Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
The Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7, 2023 resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures, including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
The offensive carried out in response by Israel has so far caused the deaths of at least 41,870 Gazans, the majority civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Ministry of Health deemed reliable by the UN.
