Israel expands its offensive against Hamas in besieged Gaza
GAZA ( Web News )
Israel expanded its offensive against Hamas in besieged Gaza on Monday, as international concern deepened over the mounting civilian death toll in the conflict. The return to open warfare after a truce between Israel and Hamas expired has had ripple effects around a region on the cusp of a wider conflagration.
Since the expiry of the truce on Friday, fighting in Gaza has resumed between Hamas and Israeli troops, as have launches of rockets toward Israel and Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian territory. Over the weekend, Israeli air strikes on northern Gaza threw thick clouds of smoke and dust into the sky.
On Sunday, the Israeli army reported a string of rocket salvos from Gaza into Israel, claiming that most had been intercepted. The Palestinian government in Gaza and the official news agency Wafa said a strike had hit the entrance of the Kamal Adwan hospital in the north of the territory late Sunday.
Several people were killed in the strike, said media reports, while Hamas accused Israel on Telegram of a “grave violation” of humanitarian law.
Israel says Hamas uses hospitals and other civilian infrastructure for military purposes — an accusation that the resistance group denies. “The IDF continues to expand its ground operation against main Hamas fronts in the Gaza Strip,” Israel military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Sunday.
“Wherever there is a Hamas stronghold, the IDF operates,” he said, referring to the Israel Defense Forces. Israel has vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the resistance group’s October 7 attacks into Israel. An estimated 240 others were taken as captives into Gaza during the attacks.
The Gaza health ministry says more than 15,500 people have been killed in the territory since October 7, more than half of them women and children. Under a truce mediated by Qatar with support from Egypt and the United States, 80 Israeli captives were freed, in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. More than two dozen other captives were also freed from Gaza.