Israel’s military declared the area in the north of the Gaza Strip to be secure months ago. Now fighting is being reported again. The army also continued the much-criticized offensive in southern Rafah.
The militant Islamist Hamas has apparently regrouped in the north of the Gaza Strip. The terrorist militia’s military wing reported serious clashes between its fighters and Israeli soldiers in the Jabaliya area.
According to its own information, the Israeli army had actually secured the area months ago. According to the AP news agency, residents reported that Israeli warplanes and artillery shelled Jabaliya and the Seitun area, east of Gaza City. “It was a very difficult night,” 48-year-old Palestinian Abdel-Karim Radwan from Jabalia told AP.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Saturday evening that warplanes had attacked targets in Jabalia in the north of the Gaza Strip after the civilian population there had been evacuated.
The Times of Israel now reported that the army estimated there were 100,000 to 150,000 Palestinians in the Jabaliya area. The Palestinian relief agency UNRWA was “extremely concerned” about the calls for evacuation.
Army chief criticizes lack of post-war strategy
The fact that the Israeli army is again active in the north of the coastal strip apparently caused criticism from the military itself. As the Israeli broadcaster Channel 13 reported, Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi complained that there were no plans to set up a civil administration in the embattled Gaza Strip.
Due to the lack of a political strategy for the period after the war, Israel’s army has to repeatedly fight in places in the Gaza Strip, such as most recently in Jabaliya in the north, which it had actually previously occupied and from which it had withdrawn. Halevi said this during security consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, it was said.
“As long as there is no diplomatic process to establish a non-Hamas administration in Gaza, we will have to keep launching campaigns in other places to destroy Hamas’ infrastructure,” Halevi was quoted as saying. “It will be a Sisyphean task.”
Gray areas: Built-up areas in the Gaza Strip, hatching: Israeli army
Offensive in Rafah – USA offers secret service help
Meanwhile, the army continued its offensive in Rafah in southern Gaza – after calling for further evacuations yesterday. The Israeli army’s operations in Rafah remained “limited” and “focused on tactical advances,” the army said. “Densely populated areas” would be avoided.
The offensive in Rafah has been heavily criticized internationally. If Israel wanted to forego this, the US would offer intelligence support in tracking down Hamas leaders, the US newspaper Washington Post reported, citing four people familiar with the US offer. This is part of the US government’s efforts to avert a full-scale invasion of the refugee-filled city of Rafah, it said.
US officials have also offered to provide Israel with thousands of emergency shelters so that the army can set up tent cities for the residents of Rafah who are being evacuated, it said.
Military reports of further tunnels
Israeli army spokesman Hagari also reported that further tunnels belonging to the militant Islamist Hamas had been discovered. An “underground route” was found in Zeitun in the center of the sealed-off coastal strip. Terrorists planned attacks against Israeli troops from here.
A major military operation is taking place in the Zeitun area. According to Hagari, around 30 terrorists were killed. Dozens of weapons were seized from a school. A tunnel was also discovered in eastern Rafah. The army’s information cannot be independently verified.
Three injured in Israeli coastal town
According to the media, rockets were also fired towards Israel during the night. In the coastal city of Ashkelon, one hit a residential building. Three people were injured, according to media reports. Hamas had recently increased its attacks on Israeli towns from the Gaza Strip.