Deadly Israeli bombings targeted eastern Gaza City on Thursday, forcing its residents to flee, at a time when fears are growing of a spread to Lebanon of the war waged by Israel against Hamas in the Palestinian territory.
Israeli artillery and helicopter fire targeted the Shujaiya neighborhood, where fighting pitted soldiers against Palestinian fighters, according to Civil Defense and witnesses who reported numerous casualties.
“Tens of thousands of civilians,” Civil Defense said, fled this area of the northern Gaza Strip after the army asked residents to evacuate.
Concern is growing meanwhile over the military escalation on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire are increasing between Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas armed and financed by Iran, and Israeli army.
This violence has increased since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered on October 7 by an attack of unprecedented scale by the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli soil.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who completed a visit to Washington on Wednesday, assured that his country had “the capacity to return Lebanon to the Stone Age” in the event of war against Hezbollah. “We do not want a war,” he added, however, specifying that his government was “preparing for any scenario.”
Hezbollah said Thursday that one of its fighters had been killed, after the Lebanese news agency ANI announced that an “enemy” drone strike had targeted a motorcycle in eastern Lebanon.
ANI also reported several Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon on Thursday, while Hezbollah said it carried out an attack on an Israeli position.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was scheduled to speak Thursday.
In the Gaza Strip, bombings and fighting continue despite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s announcement on Sunday that the “intense” phase of the war was coming to an end.
Civil Defense counted at least five deaths in Gaza City on Thursday.
A resident of Choujaiya, Omar Sukar, told AFP that a bombing had surprised a crowd at a water distribution point. “People were stocking up on water in the Shabura sector of Shujaiya. The tanker had just arrived when the bombing started,” he said.
“Terrified residents are running into the streets… There are wounded and martyrs lying in the streets,” another witness said.
A doctor at al-Ahli hospital, Dr. Muhammad Ghurab, said that “around fifty victims,” including seven dead, including four children, were transported to his facility “as Israeli forces advanced towards the ‘is from Shujaiya’.
He added that most of the injured were in serious condition and suffering from “wounds to the abdomen and head.”
In an Arabic message posted on
The army gave no further information about its operations.
Many Palestinians fled on foot through the ruined streets, taking a few belongings, according to AFP images.
In the south of the Gaza Strip, several buildings were destroyed by Israeli forces in Rafah, according to witnesses. In the neighboring town of Khan Yunis, Israeli planes targeted a school where, according to the army, “terrorists” were present.
The Israeli army launched a ground offensive on May 7 in the town of Rafah, on the border with Egypt, then presented as the final stage of its war against Hamas.
But fighting has since resumed in several other regions, notably in the north of the territory that the army had previously claimed to control.
The war broke out on October 7 after an attack by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count compiled from official Israeli data.
Of 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 116 are still being held hostage in Gaza, 42 of whom are dead, according to the army.
In retaliation, Israel promised to destroy Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States and the European Union.
Its army has launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far killed 37,765 people, mostly civilians, including at least 47 in 24 hours, according to data from the health ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza government.
The war has also inflamed regional tensions. UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned on Wednesday that the spread of the Gaza war to Lebanon would be “potentially apocalyptic” and would spread to other countries in the region with “unforeseeable” consequences.
France called on Thursday “for the greatest restraint.”
The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the small territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, besieged by Israel, where water and food are lacking.
In the few hospitals still standing, many patients have to be abandoned or die from infections due to the lack of simple gloves, masks or soap, said American caregivers returning from Gaza.
On Thursday, 21 cancer patients were evacuated to Egypt via the Israeli Kerem Shalom crossing point, according to an Egyptian medical source.
