Israeli forces near major city in Southern Gaza
Israel widened its military assault against Hamas in the southern part of the Gaza Strip on Monday, with armored vehicles rolling closer to its main city and strikes pummeling urban areas, where images showed smoke rising from flattened buildings and people carrying bodies swaddled in blankets.
Satellite imagery analyzed by The New York Times showed that the Israeli military had pushed into southern Gaza between Friday and Sunday, soon after the collapse of its weeklong truce with Hamas. As of Sunday, dozens of armored vehicles had moved into the area, according to the satellite images, which also showed tracks and clearings, likely from bulldozers.
The strikes came as the Israeli military again warned civilians to leave parts of Khan Younis, southern Gaza’s largest city, and to move to places farther south, including Rafah, on the Egyptian border. The evacuation order echoed similar directives that Israel gave before sending troops into northern Gaza in October.
The Israeli military has not confirmed a ground invasion of the south, although it has been signaling one for days and warning civilians in several areas to evacuate. On Monday, the chief military spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said that Israeli forces “keep expanding the ground operation to tackle Hamas strongholds all across the Gaza Strip.”
“Our forces are determined to do that wherever we’re required,” he said, citing two Gaza City neighborhoods in particular: Shajaiya and Jabalia, a densely populated refugee area, where Israeli warplanes dropped bombs in late October, killing dozens of civilians, according to hospital officials.
Hamas’ military wing said its fighters had targeted a tank and a personnel carrier north of Khan Younis and several Israeli military vehicles in central Gaza. The claims from both sides could not be immediately verified.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled to southern Gaza since the start of the war Oct. 7. Now, packed into shelters lacking basic supplies, many say they feel trapped.
Lubna al-rayess, a 42-yearold school principal who is eight months pregnant, said Monday she had moved twice in less than two months, first to another neighborhood in Gaza City and then to Khan Younis. Now, she said, she was unsure whether to move again to Rafah, where she said her sister had told her about heavy strikes.
“Where will we go now?” al-rayess said in a phone interview. “We have nowhere else to go.”
On Monday, a spokesperson for the Israeli military posted a map directing civilians to move to areas southeast of Khan Younis and to Rafah. But both places “are already overcrowded,” according to the United Nations’ humanitarian office, and further strikes were reported in the Rafah area early Monday, according to Palestinian news outlets.
Al-rayess said the strikes around her in Khan Younis had been “nonstop” since the truce between Israel and Hamas ended Friday. The thought of fleeing again was unbearable, she said, but leaflets dropped on the city, including on Monday, instructed civilians in several areas adjacent to hers to evacuate.
After more than a month of fighting concentrated in northern Gaza, Israel has said it remains determined to eliminate Hamas, which killed an estimated 1,200 people in a cross-border attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.
While the Israeli military says it is making progress toward that goal, it has come at a heavy cost for Palestinian civilians.
More than 15,000 people have been killed since Israeli forces began their retaliatory strikes, according to Gaza health officials. And the war has displaced nearly 80% of Gaza’s residents, or about 1.8 million people, according to the United Nations.
In Washington, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-VT., and a robust group of Democratic senators had a message for the president: They were done “asking nicely” for Israel to do more to reduce civilian casualties in Gaza.
“The truth is that if asking nicely worked, we wouldn’t be in the position we are today,” Sanders said in a floor speech. It was time for the United States to use its “substantial leverage” with its ally, he said.
“And we all know what that leverage is,” he said, adding, “the blank-check approach must end.” — The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Israeli military has not confirmed a ground invasion of the south, although it has been signaling one for days and warning civilians in several areas to evacuate.