Israeli tanks retreat from Gaza after hitting vehicles

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Israeli ground forces fought deadly battles with Hamas militants inside Gaza on Monday and sent tanks to the outskirts of the biggest city, that retreated later, while air strikes kept raining down on the besieged Palestinian territory.

The intensifying military campaign since the October 7 Hamas attacks has sharply heightened fears for the 2.4 million civilians trapped inside Gaza, where the Hamas-controlled health ministry says more than 8,300 have died. Hamas gunmen killed 1,400 people and took more than 230 hostages, according to the latest Israeli figures.

Concern has surged about the widening humanitarian crisis and the fate of hospitals in the war zone where, the World Health Organisation warns, many patients cannot be safely moved despite Israel’s evacuation order.

In heavy clashes overnight, the Israeli army said it had killed dozens of militants hiding “inside buildings and tunnels”, and a fighter jet struck a building “with over 20 Hamas terrorist operatives inside”. Columns of Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers were seen churning through the sand, and Israeli snipers took positions inside emptied residential buildings, in footage released by the army. Dozens of Israeli tanks advanced for more than an hour into the southern fringes of Gaza City, entered the Zaytun district and blocked the main north-south Salahedin Road, “firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it”, an eyewitness told AFP by phone. Video footage obtained by AFP showed a tank blowing up one car on the road.

Dozens of buildings west of the Salahedin road have already been demolished in Israeli strikes. The strikes have also razed at least 10 high-rise buildings in Tal al-Hawa, a district in southwest Gaza City, and damaged a Turkish-funded cancer hospital in the same area, its director Sobhi Skeik told AFP. Air strikes also cratered the road and brought down buildings, residents said, before the tanks pulled back from the area. The Israeli land forces were supported by heavy fire from fighter jets, drones and artillery that the army said had struck more than 600 targets within 24 hours, up sharply from 450 a day earlier. Hamas said it had fired anti-tank missiles at two Israeli armoured vehicles. It also charged Israel was trying to present a “false image that its soldiers are present in the Gaza Strip interior, even though blows delivered by the resistance have prevented them”.

In annexed east Jerusalem, police said a knife-wielding Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded an Israeli police officer before the attacker was shot dead.

Hamas also released a video of what it said were three women hostages, seated against a tile wall, although the time and place of the recording could not be verified. One woman was heard calling in an agitated tone for Netanyahu to agree to Hamas’ proposed exchange of the hostages for Palestinian prisoners. Netanyahu decried the clip as “cruel psychological propaganda”, in a statement issued shortly afterwards. Israel’s foreign ministry confirmed the death of one of those missing -- German-Israeli Shani Louk, 23, who was captured by Hamas fighters when they stormed a music festival in the Israeli desert. A female Israeli soldier was released from captivity in the Gaza Strip, the army said following an operation in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory. Fear and desperation have spiralled in Gaza, under weeks of siege that have cut off water, food, fuel and other essentials to the long-blockaded territory. Donkey carts were lining up to load water, as safe drinking water has become scarce, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip. According to the UN, all 10 hospitals in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders -- despite sheltering thousands of patients and about 117,000 of the displaced. Among those being treated are intensive care patients, infants and elderly people on life support systems. The head of the World Health Organization said calls to evacuate Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City were “deeply concerning”. Israel describes Al-Shifa hospital as a de facto Hamas “command centre” and headquarters. Limited aid has entered Gaza from Egypt under a US-brokered deal. As many as 26 aid trucks have passed inspection and made their way to the Gaza Strip from Egypt, according to a CNN stringer at the Rafah border crossing. In just the past three days, 10 United Nations staff members were killed in Gaza, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said. That brings the total number of UNRWA staff killed in Gaza since Oct 7 to 63, the agency said.

Washington has warned Israel’s enemies -- in particular Iran-allied “axis of resistance” groups -- not to become more fully involved after a series of attacks across the Middle East. The Israeli army has traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon and struck targets in Syria, including when it said it was responding to launches “toward Israeli territory”. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, told AFP that “I am doing my duty to prevent Lebanon from entering the war.” Lebanon’s intelligence chief has met a delegation of the Hamas group in Beirut. According to Lebanon’s official National News Agency, the Hamas delegation informed Abbas Ibrahim of developments in the Gaza Strip. Hamas officials expressed “the readiness of the resistance to confront any attempt of a ground invasion on the Strip”, the agency said.

In another development, the Israeli media reported Israel’s national airline, El Al Israel Airlines, has opted to avoid using the airspace of Saudi Arabia and Oman for its South Asian flights due to “security concerns.” The decision has resulted in an extension of the flight duration from Tel Aviv to Bangkok, the capital of Thailand, now taking 11.5 hours instead of the previous 8.5 hours. Meanwhile, a senior US defense official said Monday American and allied forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked with drones and rockets 23 times this month.