Israel attacks Hamas militants inside Gaza’s tunnels

GAZA/JERUSALEM - Israel said its forces fought Hamas gunmen inside the militants’ vast tunnel network beneath Gaza as a hospital director said more than 50 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli air strike on a refugee camp in the besieged enclave.

The director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital told Al Jazeera that more than 50 Palestinians were killed and 150 wounded in Israeli air strikes on a densely populated area of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

The tunnels under the cramped enclave are a prime objective for Israel as it expands a four-day-old ground offensive after three weeks of aerial bombardment into Gaza.

Israel is aiming to dismantle Hamas, following the

militant group’s attack on the south of the country on Oct 7

.

Israeli officials say about 1,400 people were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

Israel has been bombarding the Gaza Strip in retaliation and has killed more than 8,500 people there, according to the enclave’s Health Ministry.

United Nations officials say more than 1.4 million of Gaza’s civilian population of about 2.3 million have been made homeless.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday

dismissed calls for a halt to fighting

to ease the Palestinian enclave’s humanitarian crisis.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement: “Over the last day, combined IDF combat forces struck approximately 300 targets, including anti-tank missile and rocket launch posts below shafts, as well as military compounds inside underground tunnels belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation.”

The militants responded with anti-tank missiles and machine-gun fire, it added.

“The soldiers killed terrorists and directed air forces to real-time strikes on targets and terror infrastructure,” the IDF said. Israeli armed forces also bombed Gaza overnight in air, sea and ground attacks.

They targeted north-western areas of the Palestinian enclave where Israeli troops were operating on the ground, witnesses said on Tuesday.

The United States and Arab countries have urged Israel to delay any ground operation that would multiply the number of civilian casualties and might ignite a wider conflict.

Witnesses said Israeli forces targeted Gaza’s main north-south road on Monday and attacked Gaza City from two directions. Israel said its troops freed a soldier from Hamas captivity.

Hamas, an armed group that governs Gaza, has so far released four civilians from the 239 hostages that Israel says were captured on Oct 7. Many of the hostages are believed to be held in the tunnels.

The al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing, said militants clashed early on Tuesday with Israeli forces invading southern Gaza. Four vehicles were targeted with al-Yassin 105 missiles, it said, referring to locally produced anti-tank missiles.

The militants also fired at two Israeli tanks and bulldozers in north-west Gaza with the missiles, al-Qassam said. In Beit Hanoun, in the north-east, they “liquidated” an Israeli unit that was ambushed as it entered a building.

Reuters was not able to confirm the reports of fighting. Israel’s military had no immediate comment.

The mounting death toll has drawn calls from the US – Israel’s top ally – other countries and the UN for a pause in fighting to allow more humanitarian aid to reach the enclave. Food, fuel, drinking water and medicine are all in short supply.

Mr Netanyahu said late on Monday that Israel would not agree to a cessation of hostilities and would press ahead with its plans to wipe out Hamas.

“Calls for a ceasefire are calls for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen,” Mr Netanyahu said in televised remarks.

A World Health Organisation (WHO) official in Geneva said on Tuesday that a public health catastrophe was imminent in Gaza.

‘Disaster on top of a disaster’

Air strikes on Monday night outside the Indonesian Hospital in the northern Gaza Strip caused a power cut. Doctors said they feared for the lives of 250 injured Palestinians being treated there as fuel runs low.

“Running out of fuel would mean no power, and no power would mean the inevitable death of many patients at the intensive care unit and wounded in surgery departments,” Dr Moaeen Al-Masri said.

Footage obtained by Reuters showed Palestinians carrying bodies of victims of Israel’s ground offensive on a donkey cart to the Indonesian Hospital.

Health officials at the Turkish Friendship Hospital in Gaza City also reported that bombing damage to the third floor had endangered the lives of cancer patients.

The UN humanitarian office, Ocha, said water supply through a pipeline from Israel to southern Gaza was cut off on Monday for unknown reasons, and that an announced repair of another pipeline to central Gaza did not take place.

“At the time of writing, no water is provided to Gaza from Israel,” Ocha said on its website.

Significantly fewer humanitarian aid lorries have reached the besieged enclave than are required, UN officials said, and

civil order has broken down,

with people storming UN warehouses in search of food. That has put four UN aid distribution centres and a storage facility out of action, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Monday.

“It’s a disaster on top of a disaster. Health needs are soaring, and our ability to meet those needs is rapidly declining,” WHO regional emergencies chief Rick Brennan said, reiterating international calls for a ceasefire to enable a larger humanitarian operation.

Aid lorries have been trickling into Gaza from Egypt over the past week via Rafah, the main crossing that does not border Israel.

It has become the main point of aid delivery since

Israel imposed a “total siege” of Gaza

after Oct 7.

Ocha said 26 lorries entered the Rafah crossing on Monday. Before the current escalation in violence, an average of 450 aid lorries were arriving daily in Gaza.

France, Britain and the Netherlands are drawing up plans to send aid to Gaza by ship, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday.

The idea was floated by France and the Netherlands during their leaders’ separate visits to Israel last week. Britain is also looking at delivering aid to Gaza by sea.

Negotiations are still under way, according to people familiar with the talks. 

Hostages

Hamas released a video on Monday

that showed three hostages seized by the group

on Oct 7.

The women – identified by Mr Netanyahu as Yelena Trupanob, Danielle Aloni and Rimon Kirsht – sat side by side against a bare wall, and Ms Aloni addressed an angry message to the Prime Minister.

Mr Netanyahu condemned the video as “cruel psychological propaganda” and said Israel’s ground campaign created possibilities for rescuing the hostages.

Hamas is holding captive people of at least 20 different nationalities, Israel said. They include 22 Thai nationals.

On Tuesday, Thailand’s Foreign Minister Parnpree Bahiddha-Nukara

began an urgent visit to Qatar and Egypt

for talks aimed at securing their release.

Broader conflict

Fears have been mounting that the violence could spread, turning the conflict into a broader regional war. The White House has already warned Israel’s enemies – in particular Iran-allied groups – not to get involved.

In a sign of the broadening conflict, Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels fired drones towards Israel on Tuesday, a senior official from the group told AFP news agency. Israel’s army also said it had intercepted a missile fired from the Red Sea region.

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has told AFP it was his “duty to prevent Lebanon from entering the war”.

Israel’s military has struck targets in Syria and traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, insisting Israel has a duty to defend civilians.

The conflict has, meanwhile, led to demonstrations worldwide in support of the Palestinians, and a rise in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic harassment.

The US National Muslim Democratic Council said it would work to mobilise millions of Muslim voters to withhold votes towards President Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election unless he takes immediate steps to secure a Gaza ceasefire. REUTERS, AFP