Israeli warplanes struck 450 Hamas targets in Gaza and troops seized a militant compound in the past 24 hours, the Israel Defense Forces said on Monday, while the Palestinian enclave’s Health Ministry said airstrikes killed dozens of people.
A Reuters journalist in the Gaza Strip described the overnight bombardment from air, land and sea as one of the most intense since Israel launched its offensive in response to a surprise attack by Hamas in southern Israel a month ago.
Health officials in Hamas-controlled Gaza said more than 9,770 Palestinians have been killed in the war, which began when Hamas killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostages on Oct. 7.
By refusing to tolerate a ceasefire until the hostages are freed, Israel faced sustained pressure to avoid civilian casualties in its attack on Gaza, as a US diplomatic bombardment of the region seeks to reduce the risks of an escalation of the conflict.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to meet with Turkey’s foreign minister in Ankara, hours after hundreds of people in a pro-Palestinian protest tried to storm an air base housing US troops in southern Turkey. .
Israeli soldiers take part in a military action in a place designated as Gaza, amid the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on November 6, 2023. via REUTERS
Blinken made an unannounced visit to the West Bank on Sunday to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who joined international calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Blinken repeated US concerns that a ceasefire could help Hamas, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ruled it out for now. “There will be no ceasefire without the return of the hostages,” Netanyahu said.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA had reported “unprecedented shelling” from Israel, while telecommunications provider Paltel reported another outage of communications and Internet services.
This screenshot shows a view of military action in a certain location such as Gaza on November 6, 2023. via REUTERS
Gaza’s Health Ministry said dozens of people were killed by Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City and, further south, in Gaza neighborhoods such as Zawaida and Deir Al-Balah.
The IDF said its strikes hit “tunnels, terrorists, military compounds, observation posts and anti-tank missile launch sites.” Ground troops killed several Hamas fighters while seizing a militant compound with observation posts, training areas for Hamas operatives and underground terrorist tunnels, he said.
THE VISIT OF THE CHIEF OF THE CIA IS REPORTED
A senior Hamas commander, Jamal Mussa, who had headed the group’s special security operations, was among the dead, the Israeli military said.
Israel said 31 soldiers have been killed since it began expanded ground operations in Gaza on Oct. 27, fighting thousands of Hamas fighters who believe they can slow Israel’s advance in a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the enclave.
A man walks among the shrouded bodies of those killed in the Israeli bombings in Deir Balah, central Gaza Strip, at the Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital in the same city on November 6, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
An Israeli military spokesman told CNN on Sunday night that shelling in northern Gaza was halted for several hours on two days in a row to allow civilians safe passage to the south of the narrow coastal strip.
Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus added that there was access to water and humanitarian goods in southern Gaza, but Hamas was impeding convoys by shooting at them. Reuters could not immediately verify his account.
US CIA Director William Burns will also visit Israel on Monday to discuss war and intelligence with senior officials, the New York Times reported.
Burns will also make stops in other Middle Eastern countries to discuss the situation in Gaza, the Times quoted an unnamed US official as saying.
The CIA did not respond to Reuters’ request for comment.
US Vice President Kamala Harris will call foreign leaders later on Monday to discuss the conflict and advance the administration’s efforts to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza, her office said.
A Palestinian carries the body of a child killed in an Israeli bombing raid as he leaves the Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital in the central Gaza Strip on November 6, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
Jordan’s air force airdropped urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza early Monday, according to an X post by Jordan’s king and state media reports.
The US Central Command, which covers the Middle East, said in X that an Ohio-class nuclear missile submarine had arrived in the region, an unusual announcement of the position of a nuclear submarine that was seen by some analysts as a message to Iran.
‘TORN FLESH’
People searched for victims or survivors in the Maghazi refugee camp in Gaza, where the Health Ministry said Israeli forces had killed at least 47 people in attacks early Sunday.
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“All night I and the other men were trying to get the dead out of the rubble. We have children, flesh dismembered and torn,” said Saeed al-Nejma, 53.
When asked for comment, the IDF said it was gathering details.
In another attack, 21 Palestinians from the same family were killed in attacks, the Health Ministry said. The IDF declined to comment.
Reuters could not independently verify these accounts.
“We demand that you stop them from committing these crimes immediately,” Abbas told Blinken, urging an “immediate ceasefire” from Israel.
The Palestinians were facing a war of “genocide and destruction,” Abbas said, quoted by the WAFA news agency.
The war has inflamed Palestinian-Israeli violence elsewhere.
In East Jerusalem, Israeli police said a 16-year-old Palestinian stabbed and wounded two officers before being shot dead.
In the occupied West Bank, another territory where Palestinians seek a state, doctors said one Palestinian was killed and three others wounded by Israeli army fire. A military spokesman had no immediate comment on that incident.
Tensions with Lebanon rose after an Israeli attack on a car in the south of the country killed three children and their grandmother, Lebanese authorities said.
A Palestinian child sits next to the wrapped bodies of those killed in the Israeli bombing on November 6, 2023.AFP via Getty Images
Israel’s military said it had struck “Hezbollah terrorist targets in southern Lebanon” in response to a missile attack on tanks that killed an Israeli citizen.
Hezbollah said it responded by firing rockets at the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.
The group said it would never tolerate attacks on civilians and that its response would be “firm and strong.”
Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza, Ali Sawafta and Simon Lewis in Ramallah, Dan Williams in Jerusalem, and Costas Pitas in Los Angeles; Written by David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Simon Cameron-Moore, William Maclean
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Source: vtt.edu.vn