Tensions rose in Gaza on Sunday as Hamas
killed an Israeli soldier with an anti-tank missile during a failed
mission into the enclave to free hostages taken by Hamas.
As
Israel continued to lay Gaza under 'total siege', and as the aerial
bombardment continued into Monday morning, the Israeli Prime Minister
convened a meeting of his top generals and his war cabinet to assess the
escalating conflict.
Washington also warned that American interests in the region were at risk.
Israel's Rear Admiral Hagari confirmed on Sunday night that one soldier
was killed and three others wounded during the raid in the Khan Younis
area of Gaza.
The raid was launched as part of efforts
to rescue the more than 200 hostages abducted in the October 7 Hamas
attack, which also saw more than 1,400 people killed in Israel by gunmen
from the terrorist group.
Earlier, Hamas said it had fought with Israeli forces near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, destroying a tank and two bulldozers in the battle.
The
IDF later confirmed the death of the soldier and injuries to three
more, saying the casualties were caused by an anti-tank missile.
'An
IDF (Israel Defense Forces) soldier was killed, one was moderately
injured, and two were lightly injured as a result of an anti-tank
missile launched toward an IDF tank and an engineering vehicle,' the
military said.
It said the purpose of the raid was to locate Hamas hostages in the Khan Younis area and to 'thwart terrorist infrastructure'.
As
the bombardment has continued, pressure has intensified on Israel to
negotiate the release of Hamas's captives, with families pleading with
officials to secure the freedom of their loved ones ahead of the
imminent ground invasion.
Meanwhile,
Israeli troops have been conducting raids across the border, which the
military says are meant to clear the area and gather intelligence about
missing people and captives being held by terrorist group Hamas in the
enclave.
The news of the soldier's
death came as dozens of Palestinians were killed on Sunday night and
several others were wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza strip.
Thirty
bodies, most of them women and children, have been recovered from the
rubble of bombed buildings in the camp, the civil defence unit there
told Al Jazeera.
At least 27 people
suffered injuries, with hospitals saying they are struggling to treat
the wounded due to 'an acute shortage of medicines and medical
equipment'.
Local sources also claimed IDF strikes hit near a Gaza hospital.
The
Jabalia refugee camp has been hit three times previously since Israel
launched its campaign of air strikes in response to Hamas's October 7
raid that has killed more than 1,400 people in the Jewish state.
Most recently, a strike on Thursday there killed at least 18 people.
Online
footage posted on Sunday, said to be captured in the aftermath of the
strike, showed people running into a hospital carrying injured children.
Many were covered in dust and rubble, and looked to be in shock.
MailOnline was not immediately able to verify the footage.
A
report from Gazan news sources said that more than 400 people had been
killed in Israeli air strikes in the last 24 hours, which Palestinian
media described as the 'heaviest bombardment' since the October 7 Hamas
attack
Gaza's Health Ministry said 266
Palestinians, including 117 children, had been killed by Israeli air
strikes in the past 24 hours in the enclave, to which Israel laid 'total
siege' after the deadly mass infiltration into Israel by Hamas gunmen.
Health
authorities in Gaza say at least 4,600 people have been killed in
total, with over a million of the densely populated enclave's 2.3
million people displaced.
Fears of a
widening war grew as Israeli warplanes struck targets across Gaza, two
airports in Syria and a mosque in the occupied West Bank allegedly used
by terrorists. Israel said it also struck two Hezbollah cells in
southern Lebanon.
Hamas leader Ismail
Haniyeh and Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian also spoke
to discuss the means of stopping Israel's 'brutal crimes' in the
besieged Gaza enclave, the group said in a statement late on Sunday.
And
early on Monday, Israeli aircraft struck two Hezbollah cells in
Lebanon, which were planning to launch anti-tank missiles and rockets
toward Israel, its military said, as fighting flared across the two
countries' shared border.
A picture taken from Israel's southern city of Sderot shows smoke billowing during a Israeli strike on Gaza on October 22, 2023
The second convoy of aid trucks cross the Rafah border from the Egyptian side on October 22, 2023 in North Sinai, Egypt
Humanitarian
aid trucks arriving from Egypt after having crossed through the Rafah
border crossing arriving at a storage facility in Khan Yunis in the
southern Gaza Strip on October 21, 2023
Lebanon's
state-run news agency NNA reported an Israeli air strike on the
southern outskirts of Aitaroun, in southern Lebanon. It did not provide
details.
The military said one cell was
adjacent to the Israeli town of Mattat, around 13 kilometres southwest
of Aitaroun. It said the other was further north in the disputed Shebaa
Farms area. The military said it struck both cells before they fired. It
was not immediately clear if the two sides were referring to the same
set of incidents.
Iran-backed Hezbollah
and Israel have been trading fire at the frontier with increasing
frequency since Palestinian group Hamas carried out a shock attack on
Israel on October 7 and Israel responded with intense air strikes on
Gaza.
Israel has moved to evacuate 42
communities along its northern front with Lebanon over the fighting,
which Hezbollah says has killed at least 26 of its fighters since
October 7.
Lebanese security sources
say 11 fighters with Palestinian groups in Lebanon, allied to Hezbollah,
have been killed in the border area, alongside four civilians.
At
least five Israeli soldiers and one civilian have been killed on
Israel's side of the frontier, according to Israeli military reports.
Netanyahu told troops in northern Israel that
if Hezbollah launches a war, 'it will make the mistake of its life'. He
said: 'We will cripple it with a force it cannot even imagine, and the
consequences for it and the Lebanese state will be devastating.'
World
leaders including Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden are stepping up diplomatic
efforts to prevent the Israel-Gaza war triggering wider bloodshed across
the Middle East.
The Prime Minister
and US president, along with the leaders of France, Germany, Italy and
Canada, called for Israel to respect international humanitarian law,
demanded the release of the hostages held by Hamas and pushed for aid
for Gaza.
Smoke rises following Israeli
strikes at the border with Egypt, as the conflict between Israel and
Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, as seen from Rafah, southern
Gaza Strip on October 22, 2023
As
bombs continued to fall across Gaza, a second convoy of 14 aid trucks
entered the Rafah crossing from the Egyptian on Sunday night.
Juliette
Touma, director of communications at the U.N. Relief and Works Agency
(UNRWA), confirmed to Reuters news agency that the trucks had crossed
the border.
A first convoy of 20
trucks of badly-needed supplies had entered Gaza on Saturday through
Rafah, which had previously been out of operation after bombardments hit
on the Gaza side of the border and amid wrangling over conditions for
delivering aid.
Distribution of those
supplies began on Sunday, but aid officials are still warning of a
humanitarian disaster as supplies of food, water and fuel run low.
Israel
imposed a total blockade and launched air strikes on Gaza in response
to a deadly attack on Israeli soil by Hamas on October 7.
The
Rafah crossing, the main entry and exit point to Gaza that does not
lead to Israel, has become the focus of a push to deliver aid as
humanitarian conditions in Gaza worsen.
UN
officials say at least 100 trucks a day would be required in Gaza to
cover urgent needs. Before the outbreak of the most recent conflict,
several hundred trucks had been arriving in the enclave daily.
UN
humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told Reuters on Saturday that work
was under way to develop a 'light' inspection system, whereby Israel
could check the shipments but ensure a sustained flow.
In a sign of how precarious any movement of aid remains, the Egyptian military said Israeli shelling hit a watchtower on Egypt's side of the border,
causing light injuries. The Israeli military apologised, saying a tank
had accidentally fired and hit an Egyptian post, and the incident was
being investigated.
Relief workers
said far more aid was needed to address the spiraling humanitarian
crisis in Gaza, where half the territory's 2.3 million people have fled
their homes.
The UN humanitarian
agency said Saturday's convoy carried about 4 per cent of an average
day's imports before the war and 'a fraction of what is needed after 13
days of complete siege'.
The Israeli military said the humanitarian situation was 'under control'.
Israel repeated its calls for people to leave northern Gaza, including by dropping leaflets from the air.
It
estimated 700,000 have already fled. But hundreds of thousands remain.
That would raise the risk of mass civilian casualties in any ground
offensive.
Israeli military officials
say Hamas' infrastructure and underground tunnels are concentrated in
Gaza City, in the north, and that the next stage of the offensive will
include unprecedented force there. Israel says it wants to crush Hamas.
Officials
have also spoken of carving out a buffer zone to keep Palestinians from
approaching the border, though they have given no details.
Hospitals
packed with patients and displaced people are running low on medical
supplies and fuel for generators, forcing doctors to perform surgeries
using sewing needles, resorting to vinegar as disinfectant and operating
without anesthesia.
A man helps a woman flee the area as others attend to a victim following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, 21 October 2023
Smoke rises after Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City, on October 21, 2023
Plestinians inspect the damage
after an Israeli strike hit a compound beneath a mosque in Jenin refugee
camp, West Bank, Sunday, Oct. 22, 2023
The World Health Organization says at least 130 premature babies are at 'grave risk' because of a shortage of generator fuel.
It
said seven hospitals in northern Gaza have been forced to shut down due
to damage from strikes, lack of power and supplies, or Israeli
evacuation orders.
Shortages of
critical supplies, including ventilators, are forcing doctors to ration
treatment, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel, who works in Khan Younis' Nasser
Hospital. Dozens of patients continue to arrive and are treated in
crowded, darkened corridors, as hospitals preserve electricity for
intensive care units.
'It's heartbreaking,' Qandeel said.
Palestinians sheltering in UN-run schools and tent camps are running low on food and are drinking dirty water.
The lack of fuel has crippled water and sanitation systems.
Heavy
airstrikes were reported across Gaza, including in the southern part of
the coastal strip, where Israel has told civilians to seek refuge.
At
the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, south of the evacuation line,
several bodies wrapped in white shrouds were lined up outside.
A Palestinian man carries a
wounded youth in a hospital after an Israeli strike on Rafah in the
southern Gaza Strip on October 22, 2023
A general view shows the
destruction following a deadly attack by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza
Strip on Kibbutz Beeri, in southern Israel, October 22, 2023
An Israeli soldier walks next to a
burnt car following a rocket attack from the Gaza Strip that landed in
Ashkelon, southern Israel October 20, 2023
Khalil al-Degran, a hospital official,
said more than 90 bodies had been brought in since early Sunday, as the
sound of nearby bombing echoed behind him.
He said 180 wounded people had arrived, mostly children, women and the elderly displaced from other areas.
Airstrikes
also smashed through the marketplace in the Nuseirat refugee camp.
Witnesses said at least a dozen people were killed.
The
Israeli military has said it is striking Hamas fighters and
installations and insists it does not target civilians. Palestinian
militants have fired over 7,000 rockets at Israel, according to the
military, and Hamas says it targeted Tel Aviv early on Sunday.
No comments:
Post a Comment