Israeli military tanks roll near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 3, 2023, amid ongoing fighting between Israel and the militant group Hamas.
Menahem Kahana | AFP | Getty Images
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Thursday outlined a new stage in Israel’s war in Gaza: a more targeted approach to the north and a further pursuit of Hamas leaders in the south as Israel seeks to free the remaining hostages held by Hamas.
Under international pressure to shift to less intense military operations and facing economic challenges, Israel has withdrawn its forces in Gaza to allow thousands of reservists to return to work.
Gallant said in a statement that operations in the north would include raids, tunneling, air and ground strikes and special forces operations.
In the south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people now live in tents and other temporary shelters, the focus will be on eliminating Hamas leaders and rescuing about 130 Israeli hostages out of the 240 abducted on October 7 .
After the war, Hamas will no longer control Gaza, Gallant said, adding that the enclave will be administered by Palestinian bodies as long as there is no threat to Israel.
Aiming to help prevent the conflict from expanding, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken He was scheduled to travel Thursday to the Middle East for a week of diplomacy, the State Department said.
Earlier on Thursday, Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip killed more than 20 Palestinians, including 16 in Khan Younis in a southern coastal area crowded with people who had fled other parts of the enclave, Gaza health officials said.
Nine children were among the dead, they said. Separately, five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a car in the al-Nuseirat refugee camp, health officials told Reuters. Gazans said Israeli planes and tanks also bombed two other refugee camps, prompting many to head south.
Israel’s war against Hamas is approaching three months amid international concerns that the conflict is expanding beyond Gaza, drawing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hezbollah forces on the Lebanon-Israel border and the Red Sea shipping lanes.
Concern grew after Tuesday’s drone strike killed Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in the Lebanese capital Beirut. He was buried in the Palestinian Shatila camp in the city on Thursday, amid crowds of mourners unleashing volleys of gunfire.
Leader of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah was sworn in on Wednesday that his powerful Iranian-backed Shiite militia “cannot remain silent” after the killing, but did not specifically threaten action against Israel in support of Hamas.
Hezbollah has engaged in near-daily shelling exchanges with Israel along Lebanon’s southern border since the start of the Gaza war.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied Aruri’s murder. He vowed to wipe out Hamas after the Islamist group attacked southern Israel on October 7, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed.
Israel’s ground and air bombardment has devastated Gaza. The total recorded Palestinian death toll had reached 22,438 by Thursday – nearly 1 percent of its 2.3 million population, Gaza’s health ministry said.
Israel said it killed 8,000 militants in Gaza.
Adding violence to the area, two explosions on Wednesday killed nearly 100 people during a memorial service for late Iranian general Qassem Soleimani at the cemetery in southeastern Iran where he is buried. The militant Sunni Muslim group Islamic state took responsibility.
In the strike reported Thursday in Al-Mawasi on the western side of Khan Younis, Israeli shells landed near tents set up in the area by displaced people, health ministry officials said.
Footage in Palestinian media showed several bodies wrapped in blankets inside a hospital morgue in Khan Younis.
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Everywhere you go, there are strikes. In the country, next to the camps, in Al-Mawasi. There is no safe place,” said Bahaa Abu Hatab, the brother of one of the dead.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its headquarters in Khan Younis was hit, killing one person and injuring others.
In its daily briefing, the Israeli military said Israeli warplanes killed three Hamas fighters who tried to detonate explosives near ground troops, and Israeli soldiers killed two others.
Later, the army said soldiers destroyed an underground military compound on the coast of the Gaza Strip with a cache of weapons, including mortars, grenades and RPGs.
Israeli shelling has leveled much of the densely populated enclave and created a humanitarian disaster. Most Gazans have been left homeless, with food shortages threatening starvation.
On Thursday, people poured out of Al-Bureij, Al-Maghazi and Al-Nusseirat refugee camps after attacks, with some families riding donkey carts loaded with mattresses, luggage and children. The rain has turned the land into mud, adding to the misery.
During the war, the Israeli military has expressed regret over civilian deaths, but accuses Hamas of operating in densely populated areas and using civilians as human shields, a charge the group denies.