Israel mounts limited Gaza ground raids as troops mass on border

JERUSALEM – Israel’s military said on Monday its ground forces mounted limited raids into Gaza and airstrikes targeted Palestinian militants assembling to repulse any wider Israeli invasion, as each side prepares for the next stage of the escalating war.

Palestinian group Hamas said on Sunday its fighters had engaged an armoured force infiltrating a southern area of Gaza and destroyed some Israeli military equipment before returning to base. There was no Israeli comment on such losses.

How soon Israel might launch a full-scale invasion is not clear, and neither side will know exactly what to expect when it does.

Israel, the Middle East’s most powerful military, faces a militant group in Hamas that has built up a powerful arsenal with Iran’s help, fighting in a crowded urban setting and using a vast tunnel network it has built that Israeli troops have dubbed the “Gaza Metro”.

In a televised briefing describing Israel’s latest moves on the ground, Israel’s chief military spokesperson Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari also said 222 people had now been confirmed as taken hostage during the Oct 7 cross-border onslaught by Hamas.

“During the night, there were raids by tank and infantry forces. These raids are raids that kill squads of terrorists who are preparing for the next stage in the war,” he said, describing incursions that went “deep” into Gaza.

“These raids also locate and search for anything we can get in terms of intelligence on the missing and the hostages.”

Mr Hagari said such interventions helped understand where “the terrorists are assembling... getting organised in anticipation of the next stages of the war, and our role is to reduce these threats”.

Stoking expectations of a full-scale ground offensive by Israeli forces massed around Gaza, he said the military’s operational readiness was improving and being enhanced “all the time”.

Asked by Israeli Army Radio if Washington was pressuring Israel to hold off, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the US Eliav Benjamin said: “They understand that we are conducting the war in accordance with our interests. At the end of the day, we will do what we need to do when we need to do it.”

Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said in a statement on Sunday that its forces had engaged with a force infiltrating east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

“Fighters engaged with the infiltrating force, destroying two bulldozers and a tank and forced the force to withdraw, before they returned safely to base,” it said.

Inconclusive wars

Since cross-border attacks by Hamas on Israeli communities on Oct 7 killed 1,400 people, Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the fenced border around Gaza for a planned ground invasion. Israel has already launched intensive airstrikes on Gaza, where almost 5,100 people including 2,055 children have been killed.

Israel bombarded Gaza with more air strikes on Monday. Gaza’s Health Ministry said 436 people had been killed by Israeli aerial attacks in the past 24 hours, most of them in the south of the narrow, densely populated Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military said on Monday that in the past 24 hours it had struck more than 320 targets in Gaza, including a tunnel housing Hamas fighters, and command and lookout posts.

In signs that the conflict was spreading, Israeli aircraft also struck southern Lebanon overnight and Israeli troops fought Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, residents said.

Hezbollah said on Monday one of its fighters was killed, without providing details. Israel’s military said seven soldiers have been killed on the Lebanese border since the latest conflict began.

The United Nations said desperate civilians were running out of food, water and places to shelter from the unrelenting aerial pounding that has flattened swathes of the Hamas-ruled enclave.

Some aid was trickling over one border crossing into Gaza - but only a fraction of the amount needed.

A third convoy of aid trucks entered the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Monday bound for the besieged Gaza Strip, an aid worker and two security sources said.

UN officials say about 100 trucks would be needed daily to meet essential needs in Gaza, which is home to 2.3 million people and where stocks of food, water and fuel have been running low.

On Saturday and Sunday, 34 trucks passed through. The number of trucks in Monday’s convoy was similar to each of those days, security sources said.

The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population were now internally displaced, with many seeking refuge in overcrowded UN emergency shelters.

Israel has ordered Gaza residents to evacuate the north, but the OCHA said it believed hundreds and possibly thousands of people who had fled were now returning to the north due to increased bombardments in the south and lack of shelter.

Gaza’s Hamas-run Interior Ministry said that at least 18 Palestinians were killed and dozens injured in an Israeli air strike that hit homes in the Al-Saudi and Janina neighbourhoods of Rafah, close to Gaza’s southern border with Egypt.

Israel says it wants to wipe Hamas “off the face of the earth” after several inconclusive wars since the group seized power in the enclave in 2007, after Israel withdrew its forces from the narrow strip of land in 2005.

Israel has said its military campaign will exceed any previous moves against Hamas, but the Palestinian group has proved capable of surprising Israel in the past and will be fighting with powerful weapons.

Based on what happened in Israeli incursions in 2008 and 2014, Israel’s bunker buster bombs and high-tech Merkava tanks will be up against a vast network of deep tunnels, booby-traps and arms including Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles. REUTERS