Israel has been braced for a major attack since last month when a missile killed 12 youngsters in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and Israel responded by killing a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
A day after that operation, Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was assassinated in Tehran, drawing Iranian vows of retaliation against Israel.
The potential escalation underlined how far the Middle East has been thrown into turmoil by the Gaza war, now in its 11th month.
A Hamas-led attack on Israeli communities around the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7 killed some 1,200 people, with more than 250 taken into captivity in Gaza, according to Israeli tallies, in one of the most devastating blows against Israel in its history.
In response, Israeli forces have flattened Gaza, displaced most of the population and killed around 40,000 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry, in a war that has caused horror around the world.
On Saturday, scores of people were killed in Israeli strikes on a school building in Gaza City that the military said targeted fighters from the armed wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
The Israeli military on Monday released an updated document with names and other details of 31 fighters it said were killed in Saturday’s strike.
Hamas and the Islamic Jihad denied any of their fighters were present at the school.
Gaza health officials say most of the conflict’s fatalities have been civilians but Israel says at least a third were fighters. Israel says it has lost 330 soldiers in Gaza.
Source: CNA
