After heavy air and ground attacks, Israeli tanks invade the Gaza Strip

Cairo: After a night of heavy air and ground bombing, Israel deployed tanks in East Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip early Sunday. Health officials said 19 people died and dozens were injured in that attack.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, the death toll in the Israeli military operation in Gaza has now exceeded the limit of at least 35,000 Palestinians. The bombardment has devastated the coastal enclave and caused a severe humanitarian crisis.

The war was sparked by a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, which Israel said killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 people hostage. According to Israel, 620 soldiers were killed in the fighting.

Jabalia is the largest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps and is home to more than 100,000 people, most of whom were descendants of Palestinians expelled from towns and villages in modern-day Israel during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War that led to its creation the state of Israel.
Late Saturday, the Israeli military said forces operating in Jabalia were preventing Hamas, which controls Gaza, from restoring its military capabilities there.

“We have identified attempts by Hamas to restore its military capabilities in Jabalia in recent weeks. We are operating there to disrupt these attempts,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, Israel’s military spokesman, told reporters during a briefing. Hagari also said that Israeli forces operating in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City killed about 30 Palestinian militants.

“The bombing from the air and the ground has not stopped since yesterday, they bombed everywhere, including near schools that house people who have lost their homes,” said Saed, 45, a resident of Jabalia. “The war is starting again, this is what it looks like in Jabalia,” he told Reuters via a chat app. “The new incursion is forcing many families to evacuate.”

The army sent tanks back to Al-Zeitoun, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, and to Al-Sabra, where residents also reported heavy bombardment that destroyed several homes, including high-rise apartment buildings. The army claimed to have taken control of most of these areas months ago.

Israeli forces said air sirens sounded in the southern Kerem Shalom area and they successfully intercepted two rockets fired from near Rafah. It said no injuries and no damage were reported.

Later Sunday, sirens blared in the Israeli city of Ashkelon due to rocket fire from Gaza, signaling that militants there were still capable of launching rocket attacks after more than seven months of war. Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV said on its Telegram account that the rockets were fired from Jabalia despite the army’s active attack.

Shooting on the outskirts of Deir Al-Balah
Residents and Hamas media said no tanks entered the eastern city of Deir Al-Balah, but some Israeli tanks and bulldozers penetrated the fence on the outskirts of the city, leading to a shootout with Hamas militants. An airstrike late Saturday in Deir Al-Balah killed two doctors, a father and his son, health authorities said.

The armed wing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their fighters attacked Israeli forces with anti-tank missiles and mortar bombs in several areas in the Gaza Strip, including in Rafah, once the last refuge of Palestinians, where more than a million people sought refuge.

The Palestinian telecommunications company said internet services in the enclave’s southern areas were disrupted due to the ongoing “aggression,” adding that workers were trying to resolve the problem.

On Sunday, more families, estimated to be thousands, left Rafah as Israeli military pressure increased. Tank shells hit across the city as the army issued new evacuation orders for some neighborhoods in the center of the city, which borders Egypt.

“When I left Rafah, I was passing through Khan Younis, I was crying, I didn’t know if I was crying because of what I was going through, the humiliation and sense of loss I felt, or because of what I had seen.” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza resident who sought refuge in Rafah.

“I saw a ghost town, all the buildings on both sides of the street, whole neighborhoods wiped out. “People are fleeing to safety knowing there is no safe place and there are no tents and no people to care for them,” he told Reuters.

Burai, a Palestinian businessman, said Palestinians had been abandoned by the world and resigned to their fate as the war entered its eighth month. World powers have failed to end hostilities and international mediation efforts for a ceasefire have failed due to disputes between Hamas and Israel. “No ceasefire, no UN decision, no hope,” he said.
Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri said Cairo would continue its mediation between Israel and Hamas and called on both sides to show the flexibility and willingness needed for an agreement.