JERUSALEM: Israel said on Tuesday (Jan 2) its troops had killed dozens of militants in the north of the Gaza Strip in the past day, while its aircraft and tanks stepped up strikes in the south of the Palestinian enclave.
Residents said heavy fighting was also raging in central areas, citing shelling by Israeli tanks of parts of the Al-Bureij refugee camp.
Some 207 Palestinians were killed and 338 were wounded in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said, bringing the total recorded Palestinian death toll to more than 22,000 in nearly three months of warfare in the Hamas-ruled enclave.
The latest fighting took place after Israel announced plans to pull back some troops, signalling a new phase in the war against Hamas amid global concern over the plight of Gaza residents.
Israeli bombardments have reduced much of the territory to rubble and engulfed its 2.3 million residents in a humanitarian disaster in which many have been left destitute and threatened by famine due to a lack of food supplies. Israeli officials say the offensive has many months to run.
In its daily briefing, the Israeli military said that in the past day its forces had targeted militants in Gaza City in the north of the enclave and in unspecified locations along the Mediterranean coast.
“In Jabaliya area, troops killed dozens of terrorists, among them those who attempted to plant explosive devices, others who operated drones and those who were armed identified driving toward the forces,” the military said.
Troops also seized weapons and dismantled rocket launchers in Khan Younis in the south and in a United Nations school in Al-Bureij, Israel’s military said.
BOMBARDMENTS
Gaza residents said Israeli war planes and tanks stepped up bombardments of the eastern and northern areas of Khan Younis, where tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians have sought refuge after being forced from their homes elsewhere in the densely-populated territory.
In another sign of the war spreading beyond Gaza’s borders, Israeli soldiers mounting a raid in the occupied West Bank killed four armed militants who had fired at them from a house in the Palestinian village of Azzun, the military said.
An Israeli official said the situation on the border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters have exchanged artillery fire almost daily, would not be allowed to continue.
“This coming six-month period is a critical moment,” the official said.
Source: CNA
