JERUSALEM/CAIRO: Israel controls 40 percent of Gaza City, a military spokesperson said on Thursday, as its bombardment forced more Palestinians from their homes there, while thousands of residents defied Israeli orders to leave, remaining behind in the ruins in the path of Israel’s latest advance.
Gaza health authorities said Israeli fire across the enclave had killed at least 53 people on Thursday, mostly in Gaza City, where Israeli forces have advanced through the outer suburbs and are now a few kilometers (miles) from the city center.
“We continue to damage Hamas’ infrastructure. Today we hold 40 percent of the territory of Gaza City,” Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told a news conference, naming the Zeitoun and Sheikh Radwan neighborhoods. “The operation will continue to expand and intensify in the coming days.”
“We will continue to pursue Hamas everywhere,” he said, adding that the mission will only end when Israel’s remaining hostages are returned and Hamas’ rule ends.
Defrin confirmed that army Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir told cabinet ministers that without a day-after plan, they would have to impose military rule in Gaza. Far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government have been pushing for Israel to impose military rule in Gaza and establish settlements there, which Netanyahu has so far ruled out.
Israel launched the offensive in Gaza City on August 10, in what Netanyahu says is a plan to defeat Hamas militants in the part of Gaza where Israeli troops fought most heavily in the war’s initial phase.
The campaign has prompted international criticism because of the humanitarian crisis in the area and has provoked unusual levels of concern within Israel, including accounts of tension over strategy between some military commanders and political leaders.
“This time, I am not leaving my house. I want to die here. It doesn’t matter if we move out or stay. Tens of thousands of those who left their homes were killed by Israel too, so why bother?” Um Nader, a mother of five from Gaza City, told Reuters via text message.
Residents said Israel bombarded Gaza City’s Zeitoun, Sabra, Tuffah, and Shejaia districts from ground and air. Tanks pushed into the eastern part of the Sheikh Radwan district northwest of the city center, destroying houses and causing fires in tent encampments.
In a heavy bombardment in the Tuffah neighborhood, medics said five houses were damaged by Israeli strikes that killed eight people and wounded dozens more.
“The Israeli occupation targeted a gathering of civilians and several homes in the Mashahra area of the Tuffah neighborhood — a fire belt that completely destroyed four buildings,” said Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson of the territory’s civil emergency service.
“Even if the Israeli occupation issues warnings, there are no places that can accommodate the civilians; there are no alternate places for the people to go to.”
There was no immediate Israeli comment on those reports. The Israeli military has said it is operating on the outskirts of the city to dismantle militants’ tunnels and locate weapons.
Much of Gaza City was laid to waste in the war’s initial weeks in October-November 2023. About a million people lived there before the war, and hundreds of thousands are believed to have returned to live among the ruins, especially since Israel ordered people out of other areas and launched offensives elsewhere.
Israel, which has now told civilians to leave Gaza City again for their safety, says 70,000 have done so, heading south. Palestinian officials say less than half that number have left and many thousands still lie in the path of Israel’s advance.
Displacement could further endanger the most vulnerable, including many children suffering from malnutrition, said Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGOs Network, an umbrella group of Palestinian NGOs that coordinates with the UN and international humanitarian agencies.
“This is going to be the most dangerous displacement since the war started,” said Shawa. “People’s refusal to leave despite the bombardment and the killing is a sign that they have lost faith.”
Palestinian and UN officials say nowhere is safe in Gaza, including areas Israel designates humanitarian zones.
Health officials in Gaza say 370 people, including 131 children, have died of malnutrition and starvation caused by acute food shortages, mostly in recent weeks. Israel says it is taking measures to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza, including increasing aid into the enclave.
The war began on October 7, 2023, when gunmen led by Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and taking 251 hostages into Gaza.
Israel’s offensive has since killed more than 63,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to local health officials, and left much of the territory in ruins.
Prospects for a ceasefire and a deal to release the remaining 48 hostages, 20 of whom are thought to still be alive, appear dim.
Two Democratic US senators — Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley — told reporters after a week-long trip to assess the situation in Gaza and the West Bank: “Based on our conversations and our observations, we came away with the inexplicable conclusion that the Netanyahu government is engaged in a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and slow-motion ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.”
Israeli military says it controls 40 percent of Gaza City
https://arab.news/692qe
Israeli military says it controls 40 percent of Gaza City
- Gaza health authorities said Israeli fire across the enclave had killed at least 53 people on Thursday, mostly in Gaza City
- Israel, which has told civilians to leave Gaza City for their safety, says 70,000 have done so, heading south
Israeli military raids in Syria raise tensions as they carve out a buffer zone
- Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who led the rebels who took over the country, said he has no desire for a conflict with Israel
- Damascus has struggled to push Israel diplomatically to stop its attacks and pull its troops out of a formerly United Nations-patrolled buffer zone
BEIRUT: Qassim Hamadeh woke to the sounds of gunfire and explosions in his village of Beit Jin in southwestern Syria last month. Within hours, he had lost two sons, a daughter-in-law and his 4-year-old and 10-year-old grandsons. The five were among 13 villagers killed that day by Israeli forces.
Israeli troops had raided the village — not for the first time — seeking to capture, as they said, members of a militant group planning attacks into Israel. Israel said militants opened fire at the troops, wounding six, and that troops returned fire and brought in air support.
Hamadeh, like others in Beit Jin, dismissed Israel’s claims of militants operating in the village. The residents said armed villagers confronted Israeli soldiers they saw as invaders, only to be met with Israeli tank and artillery fire, followed by a drone strike. The government in Damascus called it a “massacre.”
The raid and similar recent Israeli actions inside Syria have increased tensions, frustrated locals and also scuttled chances — despite US pressure — of any imminent thaw in relations between the two neighbors.
An expanding Israeli presence
An Israeli-Syria rapprochement seemed possible last December, after Sunni Islamist-led rebels overthrew autocratic Syrian President Bashar Assad, a close ally of Iran, Israel’s archenemy.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who led the rebels who took over the country, said he has no desire for a conflict with Israel. But Israel was suspicious, mistrusting Al-Sharaa because of his militant past and his group’s history of aligning with Al-Qaeda.
Israeli forces quickly moved to impose a new reality on the ground. They mobilized into the UN-mandated buffer zone in southern Syria next to the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria during the 1967 Mideast war and later annexed — a move not recognized by most of the international community.
Israeli forces erected checkpoints and military installations, including on a hilltop that overlooks wide swaths of Syria. They set up landing pads on strategic Mt. Hermon nearby. Israeli reconnaissance drones frequently fly over surrounding Syrian towns, with residents often sighting Israeli tanks and Humvee vehicles patrolling those areas.
Israel has said its presence is temporary to clear out pro-Assad remnants and militants — to protect Israel from attacks. But it has given no indication its forces would leave anytime soon. Talks between the two countries to reach a security agreement have so far yielded no result.
Ghosts of Lebanon and Gaza
The events in neighboring Lebanon, which shares a border with both Israel and Syria, and the two-year war in Gaza between Israel and the militant Palestinian group Hamas have also raised concerns among Syrians that Israel plans a permanent land grab in southern Syria.
Israeli forces still have a presence in southern Lebanon, over a year since a US-brokered ceasefire halted the latest Israel-Hezbollah war. That war began a day after Hamas attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with Hezbollah firing rockets into Israel in solidarity with its ally Hamas.
Israel’s operations in Lebanon, which included bombardment across the tiny country and a ground incursion last year, have severely weakened Hezbollah.
Today, Israel still controls five hilltop points in southern Lebanon, launches near-daily airstrikes against alleged Hezbollah targets and flies reconnaissance drones over the country, sometimes also carrying out overnight ground incursions.
In Gaza, where US President Donald Trump’s 20-point ceasefire deal has brought about a truce between Israel and Hamas, similar buffer zones under Israeli control are planned even after Israel eventually withdraws from the more than half of the territory it still controls.
At a meeting of regional leaders and international figures earlier this month in Doha, Qatar, Al-Sharaa accused Israel of using imagined threats to justify aggressive actions.
“All countries support an Israeli withdrawal” from Syria to the lines prior to Assad’s ouster, he said, adding that it was the only way for both Syria and Israel to “emerge in a state of safety.”
Syria’s myriad problems
The new leadership in Damascus has had a multitude of challenges since ousting Assad.
Al-Sharaa’s government has been unable to implement a deal with local Kurdish-led authorities in northeast Syria, and large areas of southern Sweida province are now under a de facto administration led by the Druze religious minority, following sectarian clashes there in mid-July with local Bedouin clans.
Syrian government forces intervened, effectively siding with the Bedouins. Hundreds of civilians, mostly Druze, were killed, many by government fighters. Over half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights.
Israel, which has cast itself as a defender of the Druze, though many of them in Syria are critical of its intentions, has also made overtures to Kurds in Syria.
“The Israelis here are pursuing a very dangerous strategy,” said Michael Young, Senior Editor at the Beirut-based Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center.
It contradicts, he added, the positions of Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Egypt — and even the United States — which are “all in agreement that what has to come out of this today is a Syrian state that is unified and fairly strong,” he added.
Israel and the US at odds over Syria
In a video released from his office after visiting Israeli troops wounded in Beit Jin, barely 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the edge of the UN buffer zone, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel seeks a “demilitarized buffer zone from Damascus to the (UN) buffer zone,” including Mt. Hermon.
“It is also possible to reach an agreement with the Syrians, but we will stand by our principles in any case,” Netanyahu said.
His strategy has proven to be largely unpopular with the international community, including with Washington, which has backed Al-Sharaa’s efforts to consolidate his control across Syria.
Israel’s operations in southern Syria have drawn rare public criticism from Trump, who has taken Al-Sharaa, once on Washington’s terror list, under his wing.
“It is very important that Israel maintain a strong and true dialogue with Syria, and that nothing takes place that will interfere with Syria’s evolution into a prosperous State,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social after the Beit Jin clashes.
Syria is also expected to be on the agenda when Netanyahu visits the US and meets with Trump later this month.
Experts doubt Israel will withdraw from Syria anytime soon — and the new government in Damascus has little leverage or power against Israel’s much stronger military.
“If you set up landing pads, then you are not here for short-term,” Issam Al-Reiss, a military adviser with the Syrian research group ETANA, said of Israeli actions.
Hamadeh, the laborer from Beit Jin, said he can “no longer bear the situation” after losing five of his family.
Israel, he said, “strikes wherever it wants, it destroys whatever it wants, and kills whoever it wants, and no one holds it accountable.”
