By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli forces clashed with Palestinian fighters in the southern Gaza city of Rafah on Sunday and attacked areas in the center of the coastal enclave where thousands of Palestinians displaced from their homes were seeking shelter.
Residents of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, said there had been fierce battles between Hamas-led fighters and Israeli forces, especially in the center and western areas where tanks had advanced over the previous two days.
The armed wings of the Islamic militant groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas said fighters confronted Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortars.
The Israeli military said its soldiers killed a group of fighters heading towards them and destroyed ammunition, tunnel shafts and infrastructure in Tel al-Sultan, in the eastern part of the city.
A ceasefire effort led by Qatar and Egypt and supported by the United States has so far failed due to disagreements between the combatants, who blame each other for the impasse.
Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours have killed at least 64 people and injured more than 100 others, the local health ministry said. At least 22 people were killed in attacks on Sunday, according to the Hamas-run Gaza government media office.
Israeli strikes in areas of central Gaza last week focused on the Al-Nuseirat camp, where dozens of people were killed.
“We hear the sounds of explosions in Nuseirat and we see the smoke rising from here in Deir Al-Balah, the last refuge, we can say, and we are being terrorized by the feeling that tanks might roll here,” said Tamer Aburakan, a resident of the city of Gaza, now displaced in the central area of Deir Al-Balah.
“Where should we go next? The entire Gaza Strip is under fire and we are being hunted like deer in the forest. When is enough? When will the war end?” he said via a chat app.
HIGH VOLTAGES
Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas after its fighters killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages in an attack on October 7 last year, according to Israeli records. At least 38,983 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive since then, Gaza health officials say.
Tensions are high in the region, with concerns remaining about the possible spread of violence.
Israeli jets struck Houthi military targets near Yemen’s Hodeidah port on Saturday, a day after a drone launched by the Iran-backed group hit Tel Aviv, and separate Israeli strikes targeted a warehouse storing ammunition belonging to the armed group Lebanese Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, security sources said.
Israel said on Tuesday it had eliminated half the leadership of Hamas’ military wing and killed or captured about 14,000 fighters since the start of the war. Israel says 326 of its soldiers were killed in Gaza.
Hamas does not release casualty figures and said Israel exaggerates its reports to give the impression of a “false victory”.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, additional reporting by Ari Rabinovitch, editing by Timothy Heritage)
