IDF said that it will use all its power against Hamas, adding that the country used the seven-day pause of war to ‘increase readiness’…reports Asian Lite News
Amid the resumption of hostilities after the end of the truce, Israeli airstrikes in southern Gaza on Monday caused numerous casualties, even in supposed shelter areas. Ground forces continued the campaign against Hamas in the now-devastated north.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) instructed Khan Younis residents to evacuate, but designated zones also faced attacks. Israel’s military shared a map on social media, marking a quarter of Khan Younis in yellow for immediate evacuation
This grim development highlights the ongoing complexities and risks in the conflict, with civilians bearing the brunt of the violence in the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari reaffirmed that it will use all its power against Hamas, adding that the country used the seven-day pause of war to ‘increase readiness’.
“We pursued them in northern Gaza. We’re now pursuing Hamas in southern Gaza too. We will operate in maximum force against Hamas terrorists and infrastructures while minimizing harm to the civilians that Hamas places around them as shields. Our forces used the seven-day pause before the Hamas violation to increase readiness, review intelligence, and refine operational procedures. We are implementing lessons learned for the new phase of this war, improving the efficiency and the precision of our operations on the ground,” he said.
Invoking the end of the truce on December 1, Hagari emphasised that Hamas chose war by rejecting the release of hostages and breaking the agreement.
He said, “We have entered a new phase in our war against Hamas. Hamas broke the humanitarian pause when it violated the hostage release agreement by refusing to release women, children, and babies as agreed. Hamas also fired rockets at Israeli homes. It should be clear to everyone by now. Hamas chooses war. Hamas chose war when it broke the hostage release agreement on December 1.”
Meanwhile, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting of his war cabinet at the Defence Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv on Tuesday.
At the meeting, the PM was joined by the IDF chief of staff, the National Security Council chief, the head of the Mossad, and the Shin Bet chief, as well as cabinet members Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Minister Benny Gantz.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry said that Palestinian death toll has risen to 15,899 as a result of the Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip since October 7.
Ashraf al-Qedra, the spokesman of the ministry, said on Monday during a press conference in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, that the number of injured people rose to more than 42,000, while 70 per cent of the victims were children and women.
Al-Qedra accused Israel of escalating its targeting of hospitals and health facilities, noting that it destroyed 56 health institutions, arrested 35 medical personnel, and rendered the health system in the Gaza Strip completely incapacitated, Xinhua news agency reported.
Al-Qedra called on the United Nations and the World Health Organization to protect hospitals and health and humanitarian teams and to provide safe passage for the entry of medical supplies and fuel and the exit of the wounded.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF), meanwhile, said Hamas had deliberately embedded itself among civilians so that Gazans would bear the consequences of “Hamas atrocities”.
“Our war is against Hamas, not the people of Gaza. We are taking extensive measures to mitigate harm to the civilians that Hamas uses as shields,” the IDF said in an X post on its official account Monday evening.
Since October 7, Israel has been waging a large-scale war against Hamas after the latter launched an unprecedented attack on the Israeli towns.
‘Only 100 Aid Trucks Entered Gaza’
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Tuesday said that only 100 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip from Egypt via the Rafah border crossing in the last 24 hours amid renewed Israeli attacks in the besieged enclave.
In its latest situation update, the OCHA said that 69,000 litres of fuel also entered Gaza, which was about the same as the previous day.
The UN agency noted that “this is well below the daily average of 170 trucks and 110,000 litres of fuel that had entered during the humanitarian pause implemented between November 24 to 30”.
Israel started attacking Gaza again on December 1 after the seven-day humanitarian pause ended, with the two warring sides blaming each other for violating the truce.
Since then,Israeli bombardments from air, land, and sea across Gaza, as well as ground operations and fighting have significantly intensified, while the firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups to Israel continued.
Between the Sunday afternoon to Monday, Gaza witnessed some of the heaviest shelling.
Since December 1 until Tuesday morning, at least 349 Palestinians have died and 750 injured in the renewed hostilities, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health in Gaza,
According to Israeli authorities, three soldiers were killed in combat on Sunday.
On Monday, UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory Lynn Hastings said that ”the conditions required to deliver aid to the people of Gaza do not exist”.
If possible, an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, one in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond. What we see today are shelters with no capacity, a health system on its knees, a lack of clean drinking water, no proper sanitation and poor nutrition for people already mentally and physically exhausted: a textbook formula for epidemics and a public health disaster,” she was quoted as saying in a statement.
Since the war erupted on October 7, at least 15,899 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, about 70 per cent of whom are said to be women and children.
In Israel, the death toll stood at more than 1,200, which includes foreign nationals.
