Ground, air attacks | 85 Palestinians dead, IDF retakes Netzarim corridor dividing north from south; Hamas attacks

Agencies DEIR AL-BALAH (Gaza Strip)/ JERUSALEM

The Israeli military said on Thursday it had begun conducting ground activities in the northern Gaza Strip, along the coastal route in the area of Beit Lahia, reports Reuters. The advances on the ground by Israel on Wednesday — which included sending more troops to southern Gaza — threatened to drag the sides into all-out war again. 

Israel has also issued new warnings to Palestinians to evacuate areas in the north and east of Gaza to avoid being trapped by any fighting and has reoccupied the key Netzarim corridor, a strategic strip of land in the centre of the territory that divides it into northern and southern halves. The military resumed aerial strikes on targets in Gaza on Tuesday and launched ground operations on Wednesday, in effect ending a ceasefire with Hamas that had held since January.

Associated Press quoting paramedics said at least 85 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in Israeli pre-dawn airstrikes across Gaza on Thursday after Israel resumed its bombing campaign and resumed ground operations in the enclave.

The Guardian said at least 58 Palestinians have been killed and many injured in a third successive night of Israeli strikes across Gaza. The toll is expected to rise, as further casualties are dug from rubble in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis and the northern town of Beit Lahiya.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Thursday that 504 people had been killed since Israel resumed intense strikes on the Palestinian territory, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The total number of martyrs since the resumption of the aggression at dawn on Tuesday until noon today is 504 martyrs, including more than 190 children,” the agency’s spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said in a statement.

The timing of the strikes in the new Israeli offensive, which began on Tuesday, appears to have increased the proportion of women and children among the victims, with many sleeping when missiles strike.

A first wave of airstrikes on Tuesday shattered a two-month pause in hostilities and killed more than 400, according to the health ministry in Gaza, in what may have been the single bloodiest day of the 18-month conflict. The dead included 183 children and 94 women, Palestinian officials said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the most recent overnight strikes.

Israeli media have reported that the new air offensive is aimed at senior political and military Hamas officials, and have identified some killed. Lt Col Nadav Shoshani, a spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday that Israel had attacked “dozens of terror targets and terrorists in Gaza, including Hamas commanders, to weaken their military and governmental capabilities and remove threats to Israel”.