by Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli forces killed 35 Palestinians in aerial and ground bombardments in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, and engaged in hand-to-hand combat with Hamas fighters in areas of the town of Rafah, said local health authorities as well as Hamas media.
Israeli tanks advanced southeast of Rafah, closed in on the western neighborhood of Yibna and continued operating in three eastern suburbs, residents said.
“The occupation (Israeli forces) are trying to move further west, they are on the edge of Yibna, which is densely populated. They have not invaded it yet,” said a resident who asked not to be named.
“We hear explosions and we see black smoke coming from the areas invaded by the army. It was another very difficult night,” he told Reuters through a chat app .
Simultaneous Israeli assaults on the northern and southern edges of the Gaza Strip this month have sparked a new exodus of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and cut off main routes to humanitarian aid, increasing the risk of famine .
Israel says it has no choice but to attack Rafah to dislodge the last battalions of Hamas fighters who, according to the Jewish state, are sheltering there. Since the beginning of May, Israeli troops have been slowly advancing on the eastern outskirts of Rafah.
“The troops are currently operating based on information regarding terrorist targets in the areas of ‘Brazil’ and ‘Shaboura’, while making every effort to avoid harm to civilians and after the civilian population of the area has been evacuated,” the Israeli army said in a statement.
Palestinian residents said there had been no incursion in Shaboura, central Rafah.
“IDF troops located a rocket launcher ready to fire at IDF troops. Additionally, troops located and dismantled a number of terrorist tunnels and rocket launchers in the area, and eliminated several terrorists during close clashes,” the army added in its statement.
UNRWA, the main United Nations agency in Gaza, estimated Monday that more than 800,000 people have fled Rafah since Israel began targeting the city earlier this month, despite international calls for restraint.
At the same time, Israeli forces intensified their ground offensive in Jabalia, north of the enclave, razing several residential areas and striking the neighboring town of Beit Hanoun, where Israel had indicated that it had completed its large-scale operations there. several months.
The army claims to have been forced to return there to prevent Hamas from regrouping there.
Three of its soldiers were killed in the fighting on Wednesday, bringing to 286 the number of soldiers dead since the start of incursions into the Gaza Strip on October 20.
Israel launched its assault on Gaza following an attack by Hamas on communities in southern Israel on October 7, in which fighters killed 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages.
Since then, the Israeli assault on Gaza has killed more than 35,000 people, with thousands more likely buried under the rubble, according to Gaza health authorities.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, with contributions from Dan Williams in Jerusalem; French version Stéphanie Hamel, editing by Kate Entringer)
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