Hamas hounds Israeli forces

Palestinian gunmen kept up attacks on Israeli forces on Sunday in the Gaza Strip’s two main cities, weeks after they were overrun by enemy troops and tanks, in a sign Hamas still maintains some control ahead of any potential truce.

Nearly four months into the war triggered by the Palestinian jihadist group’s deadly crossborder rampage in Israel, there was persistent fighting in Gaza City in the north of the densely populated enclave, and in Khan Younis to the south.

At the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 17 of Hamas’ 24 combat battalions have been dismantled. The rest, he said, are mostly in the southern Gaza Strip, including Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

“We’ll take care of them, too,” he said, according to a statement from his office. Hamas does not publish its losses.

The prospect of a push into Rafah has piled pressure on the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have fled their homes elsewhere and are sheltering there. It also worries Cairo, which has said it will not admit any influx of Palestinian refugees in what it describes a bid to prevent any permanent dispossession.

An Israeli official said, however, that the military will coordinate with Egypt, and seek ways of evacuating most of the displaced people northwards, ahead of a Rafah ground sweep.

Palestinians reported Israeli tank shelling and air strikes there, including one that killed two girls in a house. As mourners bade farewell to the dead children, a relative, Mohammed Kaloub, said the air strike hit a room full of women and children in Rafah’s al-Salam neighbourhood.

Palestinian health officials said eight people were killed in separate Israeli air strikes on Deir Al-Balah areas in the central Gaza Strip. Deir Al-Balah is the second city in the enclave where Israel has not yet deployed tanks.