Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed at least 37,877 people
Shujaiya, Gaza:
Heavy battles and shelling hit Gaza City’s Shujaiya district for a fourth day on Sunday, months after the Israeli army declared Hamas’ command structure in the northern area dismantled.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled the devastated neighborhood, where the army said it fought Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives “above and below ground” in tunnels.
The military said troops “eliminated numerous terrorists, located weapons and conducted targeted strikes on booby-trapped combat complexes” over the past 24 hours, while the Air Force “attacked dozens” of operatives’ infrastructure sites.
It also reported clashes in central Gaza and southern Rafah, a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the “intense phase” of the war that has raged since October 7 was nearing an end.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “60,000 to 80,000 people have been displaced” from Shujaiya since new fighting broke out on Thursday and the army issued evacuation orders.
Months of on-and-off negotiations for a Gaza truce and a hostage release deal, however, made little progress, with Hamas saying on Saturday there was “nothing new” in a revised plan put forward by US mediators.
US President Joe Biden late last month outlined what he called an Israeli plan for a six-week truce and exchange of some hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Washington last week presented “new language” for parts of the proposed deal, according to American news website Axios.
A Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, confirmed that the Islamic movement had received the latest proposal, but said it presented “no real progress in negotiations to stop the aggression.”
Hamdan called the proposals “a waste of time” that aimed to give “additional time for the occupation (Israel) to carry out genocide.”
‘Everything is rubble’
The war began with the Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP calculation based on Israeli figures.
Hamas also captured 251 hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza, although the army says 42 are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive killed at least 37,877 people, most of them civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza.
Six more people were killed in an early morning airstrike on a family home in Rafah, said doctors at Nasser Hospital, where the bodies were taken.
Artillery shelling also hit areas south of the city of Rafah, witnesses said.
The United Nations and other aid agencies have expressed alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and the threat of famine that the war and Israeli siege have brought to Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants.
“It’s really unbearable,” said Louise Wateridge of UNRWA, the UN agency that supports Palestinian refugees, speaking on Friday after returning to the town of Khan Yunis.
“Everything is in rubble,” she said. “And yet people are living there again… There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food. And now, people are living in these buildings that are empty shells.”
In Israel, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv again on Saturday night, demanding greater efforts to return the remaining captives and calling for early elections.
Former hostage Noa Argamani, 26, who was rescued in a special forces raid on June 8, said in a video speech that “we cannot forget the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity, and we must do everything possible to bring them back home.”
‘A destructive war’
The Gaza conflict has also led to rising tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the army has been negotiating cross-border fire with the Hezbollah movement since October.
Hezbollah is part of the “axis of resistance” of armed groups supported by Iran against Israel and its Western allies. The group also includes operatives in Iraq and Huthi rebels from Yemen.
Israel’s military said this month that its plans for an offensive in Lebanon were “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that no part of Israel would be spared in an all-out conflict.
Iran’s mission to the UN, on social media on Saturday, said it “considers the Zionist regime’s propaganda about the intention to attack Lebanon as psychological warfare.”
He also warned his arch-enemy that “if he embarks on full-scale military aggression, a devastating war will ensue.”
“All options, including full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”
Iran, which supports Hamas, hailed the October 7 attack as a success but denied any involvement.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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