Israel deepening attacks on Gaza to prepare for ‘next stages of the war’, says military
Israel pounded southern Gaza with airstrikes early on Sunday and said it would intensify attacks in the enclave’s north, as prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his cabinet late on Saturday, reportedly to discuss an expected ground invasion of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian media reported at least 11 people were killed in an Israeli strike in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, and that Israel was striking the southern city of Rafah.
The strikes came hours after Israeli military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari called on Gaza’s residents to move south “for your own safety”. He said the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) would step up airstrikes from Saturday in preparation for the next stage of the war. “We will deepen our attacks to minimise the dangers to our forces in the next stages of the war. We are going to increase the attacks, from today,” Hagari said.
Gaza’s health ministry said on Saturday that Israel’s retaliatory attacks had killed at least 4,385 Palestinians, including hundreds of children, with more than a million of the territory’s 2.3 million people displaced. It comes after an attack on southern Israel by Hamas militants that killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, in a shock rampage that has traumatised Israel.
The US said late on Saturday it would send more air defence systems to the Middle East and prepare to move in more troops following attacks on its forces in Iraq and warnings from militants against intervening to support Israel against Hamas.
Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the fenced border around Gaza for a planned ground invasion aiming to annihilate Hamas, after several inconclusive wars dating to its seizure of power there in 2007. “We are going to go into the Gaza Strip ... to destroy Hamas operatives and Hamas infrastructure,” chief of staff Lieut Gen Herzi Halevi told troops in a video distributed by the Israeli military on Saturday. “We will have in our mind the memories of the images and those who fell on Saturday two weeks ago.”
Israeli aircraft also struck the West Bank, hitting a compound beneath a mosque early on Sunday that the military said was being used by Hamas. The airstrike is at least the second in recent days to hit the West Bank, where violence has surged since Hamas’s attack on 7 October.
Israel said the compound beneath al-Ansar mosque, in Jenin refugee camp, belonged to operatives from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who were planning an imminent attack. The Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said at least one Palestinian was killed and three others injured.
The military released images that it said showed an entrance to a bunker under the mosque. It also released a diagram that it said showed where militants had stored weapons there.
Canada’s National Department of Defence said late on Saturday that Israel was not behind the Al-Ahli hospital explosion in Gaza on 17 October. “Analysis conducted independently by the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command indicates with a high degree of confidence that Israel did not strike the Al-Ahli hospital on 17 October 2023,” it said in a statement.
The strike was more likely caused by an errant rocket fired from Gaza, the defence department said, based on analysis of open source and classified reporting. Canada’s findings are similar to conclusions by France and the US.
Canada said its assessment is informed by an analysis of the blast damage to the hospital complex, including adjacent buildings and the area surrounding the hospital, as well as the flight pattern of the incoming munition.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 471 people were killed in the blast at the hospital on Tuesday. US intelligence has put the death toll at between 100 and 300 people. Gaza’s health ministry blamed an Israeli airstrike, while Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by militants.
The West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp, a Palestinian militant stronghold, was the focus of a major Israeli military operation earlier this year.
Footage on social media, appearing to show the scene of Sunday’s airstrike, showed a gaping hole in one of the mosque’s exterior walls, surrounded by debris. Several dozen Palestinians are seen assessing the damage, as ambulance sirens blare in the background.
Residents of the camp said they received warnings from the Israeli military to stay away from the militants due to an impending incursion into the camp. They said the military did not specify a date.
Since the 7 October Hamas rampage, which has drawn two weeks of lethal Israeli bombardment of Gaza, at least 84 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces, Palestinian officials say.
On Thursday, Israel’s military said it raided and carried out an airstrike in a refugee camp near the West Bank city of Tulkarm. The military said the raid was aimed in part at apprehending suspects and confiscating weapons. Palestinians said at least 12 were killed.
The US said it would send more air defence systems, including a terminal high altitude area defence (Thaad) system and additional Patriot air defence missile system battalions, to the Middle East and would ready more troops.
Drones and rockets targeted two military bases housing US forces in Iraq last week, the latest in a series of attacks after Iraqi militants warned Washington against intervening to support Israel against Hamas in Gaza.
“Following detailed discussions with President Biden on recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces across the Middle East region, today I directed a series of additional steps to further strengthen the Department of Defence posture in the region,” defence secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement late on Saturday.
Washington has already sent a significant amount of naval power to the Middle East in recent weeks, including two aircraft carriers, their support ships and about 2,000 Marines.
With Reuters, Associated Press and Agence France-Presse