RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces were fighting Palestinian militants across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including parts of the devastated north that the army said it had cleared months ago, where Hamas has taken advantage of a security vacuum to regroup.
Israel has portrayed the southern Gaza city of Rafah as Hamas’s last stronghold, saying it must invade it to achieve its goals of dismantling the group and returning dozens of hostages. A limited operation there has expanded in recent days, forcing some 300,000 people to flee.
But the rest of the war-torn territory appears to offer Hamas ample opportunities. Israel has yet to offer a detailed plan for postwar governance in Gaza, saying only that it will maintain indefinite security control over the coastal enclave, which is home to some 2.3 million Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected proposed post-war plans by the United States for the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to govern Gaza with the support of Arab and Muslim countries. Those plans depend on progress toward creating a Palestinian state, something Netanyahu’s government deeply opposes.
With the two close allies divided, Gaza has been left without a functioning government, causing a breakdown in law and order and allowing Hamas to reconstitute itself even in the worst affected areas.
Palestinians reported heavy Israeli shelling overnight in the urban Jabaliya refugee camp and other areas of the northern Gaza Strip, which has suffered widespread devastation and been largely isolated by Israeli forces for months. UN officials say there is a “full-blown famine” there.
Residents said Israeli warplanes and artillery attacked the camp and the Zeitoun area east of Gaza City, where troops have been fighting Palestinian militants for more than a week. They have asked tens of thousands of people to move to nearby areas.
“It was a very difficult night,” said Abdel-Kareem Radwan, a 48-year-old Palestinian from Jabaliya. He said intense and constant shelling could be heard from midday on Saturday. “This is crazy.”
Palestine Civil Defense rescuers said they were unable to respond to multiple calls for help from both areas, as well as from Rafah, on the southern edge of Gaza. Israeli troops have been fighting militants there since the army seized the nearby border crossing with Egypt last week.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel’s top military spokesman, said troops are fighting everywhere in Gaza, “in areas where we have not yet operated and in places where we have.”
He said that in addition to Jabaliya and Zeitoun, forces were also operating in Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun, towns near Gaza’s northern border with Israel that were heavily bombed in the early days of the war.
The army “is now going to Jabaliya for the second time and Zeitoun for the third time, and will continue to come and go,” columnist Ben Caspit wrote in the Israeli newspaper Maariv, channeling the growing frustration felt by many Israelis more than seven months after the war. .
“The Hamas regime cannot be overthrown without preparing an alternative to that regime,” he wrote, drawing comparisons to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The only people who can govern Gaza after the war are the people of Gaza, with a lot of support and help from outside.”
Five Israeli soldiers were killed in Zeitoun on Friday and Palestinian militants fired a barrage of 14 rockets toward the Israeli city of Beersheba that night. Another rocket launched overnight damaged a house in the Israeli city of Ashkelon, the military said Sunday.
Meanwhile, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, the main aid provider in Gaza, said 300,000 people have fled Rafah since the operation there began. Most are heading to the nearby heavily damaged town of Khan Younis or Mawasi, an overcrowded tent camp on the coast where some 450,000 people already live in squalid conditions.
Rafah was home to some 1.3 million Palestinians before the Israeli operation began, most of whom had fled fighting elsewhere in the territory.
Israel has already evacuated the eastern third of Rafah, and Hagari said dozens of militants had been killed there as “targeted operations continued.” The United Nations has warned that a planned large-scale invasion of Rafah would further cripple humanitarian operations and lead to a rise in civilian deaths.
Rafah borders Egypt near major aid entry points, which are already affected. Israeli troops captured the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing, forcing it to close. Egypt has refused to coordinate with Israel on delivering aid through the crossing due to “the unacceptable Israeli escalation,” state television channel Al Qahera News reported, citing an unnamed official.
US President Joe Biden has said he will not provide offensive weapons to Israel for Rafah. On Friday, his administration said there was “reasonable” evidence that Israel had violated international law protecting civilians — Washington’s strongest statement yet on the matter.
Israel rejects those accusations and says it tries to avoid harming civilians. He blames Hamas for the high number of casualties because the militants fight in dense residential areas.
The war began when Hamas and other militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking another 250 hostage. They still hold about 100 captives and the remains of more than 30.
Israel’s air, land and sea offensive has killed more than 34,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures. Israel says it has killed more than 13,000 militants, without providing evidence.
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Krauss reported from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo.
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