South Gaza city struck twice
Military: Terrorists firing from humanitarian zone
RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces engaged in fierce urban battles with Hamas terrorists overnight, striking Rafah in southern Gaza twice.
Israel says it must crush Hamas’ military capabilities and remove it from power following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that ignited the war. Troops have pushed into Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, which Israeli officials have said is Hamas’ center of gravity.
Israel has ordered the evacuation of some two dozen southern neighborhoods, rather than the entire region as it did in the north, which the military says shows increased concern for civilians.
With northern and central Gaza largely isolated and cut off from aid, Palestinians are heading south to Rafah and other areas along the border with Egypt.
The Israeli military accused terrorists of firing rockets from open areas near Rafah in the humanitarian zone. It released footage of a strike Wednesday on what it said were launchers positioned outside the town and a few hundred yards from a U.N. warehouse.
The military said Thursday that it struck dozens of terrorist targets in Khan Younis, including a tunnel shaft from which fighters had launched an attack. It said two of the attackers were killed.
In the afternoon, a heavy strike near a main intersection in the center of Khan Younis left a large field of rubble.
Hamas and other terrorists killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that triggered the war, and took some 240 people hostage. An estimated 138 hostages remain in Gaza, mostly soldiers and civilian men, after 105 were freed during a cease-fire in late November.
The Gaza Health Ministry, an arm of Hamas, said more than 17,000 Palestinians have been killed. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths. Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.
A built-up refugee camp inside Khan Younis was the childhood home of Hamas’ top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, and the group’s military chief, Mohammed Deif, as well as other Hamas leaders — though their current whereabouts are unknown.
Heavy fighting is also still underway in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, even after two months of heavy bombardment and encirclement by ground troops. The military said troops raided a terrorist compound, killing a number of fighters and uncovering a network of tunnels.
The military reported “close-quarter combat” in the nearby district of Shujaiya, including terrorists found in a tunnel under a school.
Israel blames the high civilian death toll on Hamas, accusing it of using civilians as human shields when the terrorists operate in residential areas.
The military says 87 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. It also says some 5,000 terrorists have been killed.
An anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon into northern Israel killed an Israeli man, the emergency services said. Hezbollah said its fighters attacked Israeli military posts along the border. Israel responded with intense strikes with helicopters, tanks and artillery, the military said.
Hezbollah and other terrorists in Lebanon have been exchanging fire nearly daily with Israeli forces over the border. Visiting a northern base Thursday, Netanyahu warned that if Hezbollah escalates to allout war, Israel’s response will be to “turn Beirut and southern Lebanon … into Gaza and Khan Yunis.”