Israel vows to press on in Gaza after Iran attack
Mediation efforts continue to halt fighting and meet demand from both sides
Israel launched dozens of air strikes on Gaza overnight, Hamas said yesterday, as the army said it will not be distracted from the war after Iran’s unprecedented attack heightened fears of wider conflict.
World powers have urged restraint after Iran on Saturday launched more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, though the Israeli military has said the vast majority were intercepted.
Tehran’s first direct assault on Israel, in retaliation for a deadly strike in Damascus earlier this month, followed months of violence across the region involving Iranian proxies who say they act in support of Palestinians in the war-battered Gaza Strip.
“Even while under attack from Iran, we have not lost sight, not for one moment, of our critical mission in Gaza to rescue our hostages,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Sunday.
As mediators eye a deal to halt the fighting, triggered by the Oct 7 attack, fears grew over Israeli plans to send troops into Rafah, a farsouthern city where the majority of Gaza’s 2.4 million people have taken refuge.
“Hamas is still holding our hostages in Gaza,” Hagari said of the roughly 130 people, including 34 presumed dead, who Israel says remain in the hands of gunmen.
“We also have hostages in Rafah, and we will do everything we can to bring them back home,” the military spokesman told a briefing.
The army said it was “calling up approximately two reserve brigades for operational activities on the Gazan front”, about a week after withdrawing most ground troops from the territory.
The Hamas government media office said Israeli aircraft launched “dozens” of strikes overnight on central Gaza.
Rumours of a reopened Israeli checkpoint on the coastal road from the besieged territory’s south to Gaza City sent thousands of Palestinians heading north on Sunday, despite Israel denying it was open.
An AFP journalist saw mothers holding their children’s hands and families piling onto donkey carts with their luggage as they made the journey.
Hoping to reunite with his wife who has been in the southern city of Khan Younis, Mahmoud Awdeh said, “she told me over the phone that people are leaving ... she’s waiting at the checkpoint until the army agrees to let her head to the north”.
The Israeli army said that reports the route was open were “not true”.
Attempting the journey back to northern Gaza, displaced resident Basma Salman said, “even if it (my house) was destroyed, I want to go there. I couldn’t stay in the south.”
“It’s overcrowded. We couldn’t even take a fresh breath of air there. It was completely terrible.”
Late Saturday, Hamas said it had submitted its response to a truce plan presented by US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators at talks that started in Cairo on April 7.
Hamas said it was sticking to its previous demands, insisting on “a permanent ceasefire” and the withdrawal of the Israeli army.
Israel’s Mossad spy agency called this a rejection of the proposal, accusing Hamas of “continuing to exploit the tension with Iran” and aiming for “a general escalation in the region”.
But the United States said mediation efforts continue.
A National Security Council spokesperson said: “There’s a new deal ... it is a good deal.” – AFP