Israeli forces step up military pressure on Gaza on eve of new truce talks
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
An Israeli tank on the move in Israel near the Gaza border. Tanks were involved in the fighting in Gaza on the eve of truce talks in July.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Follow topic:
CAIRO – Israel pushed on with a major military offensive in war-ravaged Gaza City on July 9 that the United Nations said has once again displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.
Troops, tanks and aircraft were involved in the fighting in Gaza’s biggest urban area
A source with knowledge of the talks said US Central Intelligence Agency director William Burns and Israel’s Mossad chief David Barnea would travel to Doha on July 10, and also meet the Qatari Prime Minister, a key mediator.
Hamas, whose Oct 7 attack started the war, has accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deliberately stepping up fighting in Gaza City and in far-southern Rafah in order to thwart a ceasefire agreement.
The Islamist group’s Qatar-based political chief Ismail Haniyeh said he had made “urgent contact” with mediators, warning that the “catastrophic consequences” of the battles could “reset the negotiation process to square one”.
Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, described the latest Gaza City fighting as “the most intense in months”, with militants using rockets, mortars and explosives.
Israeli forces – after almost two weeks of battles in Gaza City’s eastern Shujaiya district – on July 8 intensified fighting and bombardment across the city’s east, west and south.
Residents reported overnight helicopter strikes, “explosions and numerous gun battles” in the city’s south-west.
The Israeli military said it was pursuing a “counter-terrorism operation” against Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza City, six months after saying it had dismantled Hamas’ “military framework” in northern Gaza.
“Over the last day, the troops eliminated dozens of terrorists in close-quarters combat and aerial strikes,” it said in a statement, adding that its forces had seized weapons and destroyed tunnels.
The UN said tens of thousands of civilians have been affected by the renewed fighting and three separate evacuation orders Israel has declared in Gaza City since June 27.
Thousands were again seen marching down dusty roads past bombed-out buildings, with mothers carrying babies and others packing their sparse belongings onto donkey carts.
Palestinians leaving parts of Gaza City. The UN said thousands of civilians have been affected by the renewed fighting and evacuation orders.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The UN Human Rights Office said it was “appalled” at the new orders to civilians
The office said Gazans told to leave central Gaza City for the west on July 8 were caught up in new fighting as the army “intensified its strikes in the south and west of Gaza City, targeting the very areas where they had instructed people to move to”.
Gaza City residents have now been told to move south to Deir al-Balah, which the UN office said “is already seriously overcrowded with Palestinians displaced from other areas of the Gaza Strip”.
Fighting has also raged elsewhere in the territory, including in Nuseirat, Khan Yunis and Rafah.
The Israeli military said on July 8 its air force had struck “several terrorists” who were using a Nuseirat school “as cover”.
A source at the local Al-Awda hospital said it received several wounded after an attack on a school run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
A July 6 strike on another Nuseirat school killed 16 people
Israel’s army said Hamas and Islamic Jihad “systematically violate international law, exploiting civilian structures and population as human shields for terror attacks against the State of Israel”.
Palestinians carrying a body away following Israeli shelling of a shelter for displaced people at a UN-run school in Nuseirat.
PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
The war started with Hamas’ Oct 7 attack on southern Israel
Israel responded with a military offensive that has killed at least 38,243 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry. It added that 88,033 people have been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began.
Qatar has been engaged in months of behind-the-scenes negotiations, with support from Egypt and the United States, in efforts to reach a truce and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
Hamas signalled last week that it would drop its insistence on a “complete” ceasefire
Mr Netanyahu’s office reiterated on July 7 that “any deal will allow Israel to return and fight until all the goals of the war are achieved”, including Hamas’ destruction.
A Palestinian official with knowledge of the talks said while a Hamas team would take part in indirect talks with Israel, there were several “points of divergence”.
The official said these included Israel’s refusal to release some Palestinian prisoners serving long sentences, and questions on when Israel would withdraw from areas along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt. AFP
