The Israeli army says it is expanding its ground operations against Hamas strongholds to the entire Gaza Strip, vowing that the fighting in the south will be “no less powerful” than the offensive in the north.
The IDF said its ground forces were operating in the besieged enclave when Israeli forces bombarded parts of the area on Sunday, killing and wounding dozens of Palestinians as civilians sought shelter in a shrinking area in the south.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas said its fighters clashed with Israeli forces about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the southern town of Khan Younis.
Residents, many of whom had moved there to flee earlier attacks in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, said they could hear tank fire and feared a new Israeli ground offensive was brewing.
The Israeli military previously ordered people to evacuate some areas in and near the city, but made no announcement of a new southern ground assault.
“The IDF (Israel Defense Forces) continues to expand its ground operation against Hamas centers throughout the Gaza Strip,” spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters in Tel Aviv, in the clearest sign that the planned ground offensive in the south had begun. “The armed forces are coming face to face with terrorists and killing them.”
An Israeli military tank rolls near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 3, 2023
Smoke rises over the Palestinian enclave during the Israeli bombardment, amid ongoing fighting between Israel and Hamas
Palestinian civilians inspect the destruction caused by airstrikes on their homes on December 3, 2023 in Khan Yunis
Smoke rising after Israeli attacks in Gaza is seen from Sderot in southern Israel
Fears that the conflict could spread and destabilize the region were fueled by Yemen's Iran-linked Houthi movement, which on Sunday attacked two Israeli ships in the Red Sea with an armed drone and a missile, in a attempt to support the Palestinians.
The Pentagon also said it was aware of reports of an attack on a US warship, the USS Carney, without providing details. There was no independent confirmation from Israel or the United States of the attacks, or of any damage they caused.
The Jabalia refugee camp in northern Hamas-ruled Gaza was among the locations hit from the air. A spokesman for the Health Ministry in Gaza said several people were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
Footage obtained by Reuters showed a boy covered in gray dust crying among crumbled cement and rubble of collapsed buildings.
“My father has been tortured,” he shouted in a hoarse voice. A girl in a pink sweatshirt, also covered in dust, stood among piles of rubble.
Bombardments from warplanes and artillery also focused on Khan Younis and Rafah, another city in southern Gaza, residents said, and hospitals struggled to cope with the flow of wounded.
Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy said the army had hit more than 400 targets over the weekend “including extensive airstrikes in the Khan Younis area” and had also killed Hamas militants and destroyed their infrastructure in Beit Lahiya in the north destroyed.
There was no immediate comment on reports of specific attacks.
The renewed war on Friday followed the end of a seven-day lull in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants, which had allowed an exchange of 105 hostages held by Hamas, most of them Israeli, for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The latest violence took place despite calls from the United States – considered Israel's closest ally – for the country to limit damage to Palestinian civilians in the new phase of its offensive aimed at the south.
Israeli flares illuminate the sky over Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 3, 2023
Israeli troops and military vehicles are positioned near the border with the Gaza Strip on December 3, 2023
More than 15,523 people have been killed in the nearly two-month war that erupted after a cross-border attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7, in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and about 240 taken hostage, according to Gaza's health ministry. Israel says Hamas is still holding 136 hostages.
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas. The Iranian-backed group has vowed the destruction of Israel.
The initial Hamas attack and subsequent war represent the bloodiest episode in the decades-long broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, accused Israel of pursuing a deliberate strategy to send Gaza civilians south to trap and kill them.
Palestinians injured in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are taken to hospital in Deir al Balah
Palestinians injured in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip are taken to hospital in Deir al Balah
“It has become clear that the occupation's claim… to the existence of safe areas in the south of the Gaza Strip, and its continued call for civilians to go there, was a premeditated plan and trap to commit more massacres against unarmed civilians and displaced persons in the south,” he told reporters without citing evidence. “There are no safe areas.”
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment but has consistently said it is targeting Hamas military strongholds and has asked civilians to move to safe zones so they can receive humanitarian aid.
Gaza residents said earlier on Sunday they feared an Israeli ground offensive on southern areas was imminent. Tanks had cut off the road between Khan Younis and Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, effectively dividing the Gaza Strip into three.
The Israeli army has ordered Palestinians to evacuate several areas in and around Khan Younis. It posted a map showing the shelters they should go to west of Khan Younis and south towards Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
Wounded Palestinians, including children, receive medical treatment at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza
Many residents began packing their belongings, but said the areas they were supposed to go to were themselves under attack.
Nabil Al-Ghandour told Reuters that he and his family would leave Khan Younis for Rafah later on Sunday, their fifth step in search of safety since the conflict began.
“We can't see any safe areas,” he said. 'But we're moving, because what can we do? We have children and they're being shot at all night long.'
Later on Sunday, a Gaza Health Ministry official said seven people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Rafah. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Israeli military said on Sunday that its warplanes and helicopters had struck Hamas targets, including tunnel shafts, command centers and weapons storage facilities. Naval forces had struck Hamas ships on the coast, the report said.
The army refused to provide figures on the number of air strikes carried out.
On another front, Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants exchanged fire across the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel said several of its soldiers were injured when an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon hit a vehicle in the Beit Hillel area of northern Israel. Reuters could not independently verify the accounts.
