Israel strikes as it ‘winds down’ war

Fears mounting the fighting could escalate, with Iran stepping up attacks. CIVILIAN DEATHS SOAR IN GAZA

Israel pummelled southern Gaza yesterday, after announcing the winding down of the intense phase of the war that has inflamed tensions across the Middle East.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has come under mounting international pressure to end its offensive in Gaza launched in response to Hamas’s unprecedented 7 October 2023 attacks.

But fears are mounting the war could escalate, with Iran and its proxies stepping up attacks across the region in solidarity with Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the Palestinian territory.

Hamas’s press office said Israeli strikes killed at least 78 people in the Gaza Strip overnight. An AFP correspondent said the southern city of Khan Yunis was hit hard.

A young girl scoured rubble for salvageable items, while some scrambled to reach safer areas in Rafah on the Egyptian border, their belongings piled onto carts drawn by donkeys and tractors.

A barrage of 50 rockets was fired toward Netivot in southern Israel, without causing any casualties, the army said. Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, claimed the attack.

AFPTV live footage showed trails of smoke and explosions ring out as Israeli air defences intercepted rockets near Gaza.

Fighting has ravaged Gaza since 7 October, when Hamas militants carried out an unparalleled attack on Israel that resulted in about 1 140 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also dragged about 250 hostages back to Gaza, 132 of whom Israel says remain there, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.

At least 24 285 Palestinians, about 70% of them women, children and adolescents, have been killed in Gaza in Israeli bombardments and ground operations, according to the Hamas government.

Israel has concentrated operations on Khan Yunis since announcing on 6 January that it had dismantled Hamas’s military structures in the north.

Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday said intense operations would “soon” wind down in the territory’s south.

The army announced yesterday the death of two more soldiers in Gaza, bringing to 190 the total number killed since its ground invasion began.

UN chief Antonio Guterres on Monday reiterated calls for a stop to the war. “We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. To ensure sufficient aid gets to where it is needed...” he said. –