Israeli soldiers skirmish with Hamas inside Gaza

Israel pounded hundreds of targets in Gaza from the air yesterday while its soldiers battled Hamas fighters during raids into the besieged Palestinian enclave where deaths are soaring and civilians are trapped in harrowing conditions.
Gaza’s health ministry said 436 people had been killed in bombardments over the past 24 hours, most in the south of the narrow, densely populated territory, next to which Israeli troops and tanks have massed for a possible ground invasion.
The Israeli military said it had struck more than 320 targets in Gaza over 24 hours..
Figures from the Hamas government say more than 181,000 housing units have been damaged, of which 20,000 had been totally destroyed or rendered uninhabitable.
With the territory’s 2.3mn people running short of basics, European leaders looked set to follow the United Nations and Arab nations in calling for a “humanitarian pause” in hostilities so aid could reach them.
The conflict is escalating beyond Gaza.
Israeli aircraft also hit positions in south Lebanon held by Hezbollah.
The Israeli army and Palestinians also clashed in the occupied West Bank. And Hamas fired more rockets into Israel.
The UN said desperate Gazans lacked food, water, medicines and places to shelter from the unrelenting pounding that has flattened swathes of the Hamas-ruled enclave.
Some aid was trickling over one border crossing into Gaza, but only a small fraction of the amount needed.
At least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in two weeks of strikes, including 2,055 children, Gaza’s health ministry said.
With thousands more wounded, the ministry called on citizens “to immediately go to hospitals and blood banks to donate blood”.
The Israeli bombardment was triggered by an October 7 cross-border assault on Israeli communities by Hamas fighters who killed 1,400 people and took more than 200 hostage – the bloodiest episode in a single day since the state of Israel was founded 75 years ago.
Israel said its armed forces’ incursions overnight were partly intended to gather intelligence, with the whereabouts of the hostages unknown, and had helped improve its military readiness.
“These raids are raids that kill squads of (Hamas fighters) who are preparing for our next stage in the war. These are raids that go deep,” military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters engaged with an Israeli force that infiltrated southern Gaza, destroying two bulldozers and a tank and forcing the raiders to withdraw.
Israel made no comment on the incident.
The al-Qassam Brigades also said they were firing missiles at the southern Israeli towns of Ashkelon and Mavki’im. Warning sirens blared out on the Israeli side.
The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said about 1.4mn of Gaza’s population – more than half – were now internally displaced, with many seeking refuge in overcrowded UN emergency shelters.
Israel has ordered Gaza residents to evacuate the north.
Early yesterday, Israeli warplanes also struck two Hezbollah cells in Lebanon.
Israel also hit a Hezbollah compound and an observation post.
The International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a UN agency, said 19,646 people had been displaced inside Lebanon since it began tracking movements on October 8.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, two Palestinians were killed at the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said.
Residents told Reuters that Israeli forces raided the camp and made many arrests as they clashed with gunmen and some youths who threw stones.
The Israeli military said 15 suspects were apprehended, ten of them Hamas operatives.
The UN said aid arriving so far was just 4% of the daily average before the hostilities.
At the weekend, Israel said it was stepping up its raids on Gaza and has massed tens of thousands of troops along the border ahead of a widely-expected ground invasion.
It has said its aim is to destroy Hamas, but has offered little detail about what would follow.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayyeh has accused Western nations of giving Israel a “licence to kill”, saying that Israeli plans for a ground invasion would mean “more crimes, atrocities and forced displacement”.
“We condemn the statements that constitute a licence to kill and give Israel political cover to commit massacres and spread destruction in Gaza,” he said.
US President Joe Biden and other leaders including Britain’s Rishi Sunak and Germany’s Olaf Scholz have visited Israel in recent days and urged it to keep within international humanitarian law.