Supported by the air force, Israeli soldiers carried out operations against Palestinian Hamas in Gaza City on Friday, pushing tens of thousands of people to flee, in the 9th month of the war which has raised fears of a regional conflagration.
On the Israeli-Lebanese border, attacks by Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, against Israeli positions and those of the Israeli army against targets in Lebanon continued, with the Lebanese movement reporting the death of four fighters.
The major Israeli offensive in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement against Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on data Israeli officials.
And fears of seeing this conflict spread to Lebanon have increased after an escalation of violence on the Israeli-Lebanese border and threats.
The war has caused a catastrophe for humanity in the small Palestinian territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, besieged since October 9 by Israel: water and food are lacking, most hospitals are out of service, neighborhoods entire areas are destroyed and 37,765 have been killed there according to data from the Ministry of Health of the government, led by Hamas in power since 2007 in Gaza.
In the east of Gaza City (north), the army announced an operation in Shujaiya after intelligence on a “presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure” in this sector. Soldiers entered it and military planes targeted “dozens of Hamas terrorist sites.”
Columns of smoke rose above Shujaiya after airstrikes and shelling, according to an AFP correspondent.
The operation began Thursday with artillery and helicopter fire as well as clashes between soldiers and fighters.
Civil Defense and witnesses reported “numerous deaths”.
“Tens of thousands of civilians” have fled the area, Civil Defense said, after a call from the army to evacuate and while no place is safe in the Gaza Strip according to the UN.
” That’s enough ! We are devastated. We have lost our children and our homes, and we continue to flee from one place to another,” said a Palestinian woman as she left the area.
Israeli strikes targeted other areas of northern Gaza, “eliminating dozens of terrorists hiding in UNRWA schools,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, the army said.
In central Gaza, medical sources reported three deaths including a girl in Deir al-Balah and artillery fire was heard in Nuseirat. In the south, artillery fire targeted Khan Younis and Rafah.
The army announced the death of a 19-year-old soldier in southern Gaza, bringing to 314 the number of soldiers killed since the ground offensive in the Palestinian territory began on October 27.
On May 7, Israeli troops launched a ground offensive in Rafah, then presented by Israel as the last major Hamas stronghold. But fighting has resumed in several other regions, especially in the north where pockets of Hamas remain.
After the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel vowed to destroy the Islamist movement it considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States and the European Union.
On Thursday, Israelis hostile to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war took to the streets again to call for the release of the hostages.
During the Hamas attack on October 7, 251 people were kidnapped, 116 of whom are still held in Gaza, of whom 42 died, according to the army
In the aftermath of this attack, Hezbollah opened a front with Israel in support of the Palestinian movement, and since then, exchanges of fire in the border areas have been almost daily and sometimes very intense.
On Thursday, Hezbollah announced that four of its fighters had been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon and claimed three attacks on military positions in northern Israel, including one with “dozens of Katyusha rockets” on a ” anti-missile air base”.
On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel did not want war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but warned his country had “the capacity to return Lebanon to the Stone Age” in the event of conflict.
The United States, the UN and France in particular have warned against a war in Lebanon.
