Jerusalem, Dec 7 (EFE).- The Israeli army struck dozens of Palestinian militia targets around the city of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, where Israel has focused its campaign since the breakdown of a ceasefire last week.
Israel was also continuing its operations elsewhere in the enclave, in particular the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north.
“As part of their operations in Khan Younis, terrorists were eliminated and dozens of terrorist targets were attacked by the Air Force,” the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said Thursday morning, adding that they had also “encountered a terrorist squad coming out of a tunnel shaft, killed two terrorists in the encounter and destroyed the shaft.”
During their actions in the Jabaliya camp, “several terrorists” were killed when Israeli “troops carried out a targeted raid on a military compound belonging to Hamas, the Islamist group that governs Gaza.
In addition, their “forces located a network of subway tunnels” leading out of the compound, as well as a training area and a weapons storage facility.
Israeli ground troops and naval forces across the Strip attacked Hamas military installations and infrastructure, the IDF said.
Since the breakdown of a week-long truce on Dec. 1, Israel has resumed its attacks on the enclave and has expanded its offensive to the south, where hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the north and Gaza City had fled to in recent weeks since the conflict escalated in October.
These two areas have been almost entirely taken over by the Israeli army, which began its ground offensive on Oct. 27.
There are almost 1.9 million IDPs in Gaza, around 80% of its total population of 2.3 million. Many of them have evacuated in recent days to Rafah, the southernmost city in the enclave.
Since the early hours of Thursday morning, the relentless Israeli bombardments on different parts of the Strip have resulted in dozens of deaths, including children and women, according to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The attacks targeted “dozens of houses, buildings, residential apartments, and public and private properties,” Wafa said.
Among them, Israeli aircraft bombed a mosque in the Al Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City, “causing at least 12 deaths and dozens of injuries,” while homes in several other neighborhoods of the city were also struck.
At least 16,200 people have been killed by Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip, while some 7,000 people are feared to be trapped under the rubble of demolished buildings.
The conflict broke out after a Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that resulted in more than 1,200 deaths and 240 hostages.
The Israeli army has since then been carrying out a campaign in Gaza that seeks to “eradicate” Hamas. EFE
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