Israeli forces have killed 3 people, injuring dozens more during an assault in central Gaza strip last night. They had attacked with armoured tanks, deepening their invasion into Rafah in the South.
Israeli airplanes had bombarded a house in Al-Nuseirat camp, killing two people and wounding 12, while tanks shelled the Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij camps, wounding a great number of people, health officials said.
Note that Nuseirat, Maghazi, and Bureij are three of Gaza’s eight notable refugee camps.
Medics had said on Thursday that an Israeli air strike killed one Palestinian in Deir al-Balah, (a city in central Gaza), with several others sustaining injuries.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military remarked that its forces were continuing their operations across the enclave targeting militants and military infrastructure in what it has come to term, “precise, intelligence-based” activities.
Its been over eight months since the conflict began and Israel’s advance is now mostly targeted on the two last areas its forces had yet to storm: Rafah on Gaza’s southern edge and the area surrounding Deir al-Balah in the middle.
This military operations have forced over a million people to take flight since May.
In Rafah, near the Egyptian border , Israeli tanks stationed deep in the western and central areas of the city have ramped up the assault, compelling more families living in the far coastal areas to retreat northward.
Rafah had been the residential territory for over half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people until May 7 when the Israeli troops began the ground offensive into the city.
Presently, there are less than 100,000 believed to be left behind in Rafah.
All efforts made by international mediators, with considerable support from the United States, have failed to persuade Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire.
On Thursday, Israeli authorities liberated 33 Palestinians who had been held in custody during the past months by Israeli forces in various areas of the enclave. The liberated detainees were admitted into Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip after they lamented how they were tortured and mistreated by Israeli jailers.
Israel had however, denied mistreating the Palestinian detainees.
The Israel-Gaza conflict began when Hamas-led militants stormed southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people and abducting over 250 hostages, according to Israeli accounts.
Israel’s offensive has left Gaza in ruins, killing over 37,400 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, impoverishing and displacing almost the entire population.
Since a week-long truce that held in November, repeated attempts to arrange a ceasefire once again have failed.
Hamas has insisted on an end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza but the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu says he will agree only to short-term pauses and will not end the war until Hamas is wiped out and its hostages are set free.
