Hundreds dead and injured: fierce fighting resumes in Gaza after the breakdown of the truce

The parties accuse each other of violating the terms of the terminated truce.

Photo: REUTERS

Fighting in the Gaza Strip, which resumed yesterday after a seven-day truce, is becoming fierce, reducing the chances that mediators will try to persuade the parties to cease fire again. Negotiations in Qatar between the Palestinian movement Hamas and Tel Aviv on a new truce have failed. The parties accuse each other of violating the terms of the terminated truce.

In the last 24 hours, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), according to the army’s Telegram channel, attacked more than 400 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip. “Troops fired artillery fire and carried out airstrikes in the northern Gaza Strip. These attacks included an airstrike against a terrorist cell that was ambushing IDF troops, as well as a fighter jet attack against a mosque used by Islamic Jihad as an operational command center,” the publication says. In the Khan Yunis city area, fighter jets hit more than 50 targets. The Israeli Navy carried out operational operations in the port of Khan Yunis and in the city of Deir el-Balah. In response to a mortar attack on the Shomer area in northern Israel, the IDF attacked the source of the launches and opened artillery fire on several locations in Lebanon.

Arab media also report heavy fighting in the southern Gaza Strip, including residential areas. The Palestinian side reported 200 deaths and more than 500 injuries since Israel resumed its military operation. More than 100 people were killed in an Israeli attack on a house in the Jabaliya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, reports the Palestinian Safa agency.

The IDF, according to Al Jazeera, is raiding cities and towns in the West Bank: Hebron, Qalqilya and towns south of Nablus. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad group said they carried out rocket attacks on several Israeli positions and border communities on Saturday. Al-Qassam brigades (the military wing of Hamas) fired rockets at Israeli military positions and several kibbutzim located near the border with Gaza.

According to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Romanian hostage of six people with dual Romanian-Israeli citizenship held by terrorists has died. The United Arab Emirates on Monday requested a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council and proposed its draft resolution on additional humanitarian corridors.