Israeli troops, warplanes strike north Gaza

Palestinian Territories – AFP

Israel’s military on Friday said it was conducting raids backed by air strikes in northern Gaza, killing “dozens” of Palestinians in an area where it had declared the command structure of Hamas dismantled months ago.

The raids in Shujaiya, on the edge of Gaza City, caused numerous casualties, witnesses and medics said on Thursday when it began.

Renewed attacks by Israel in Gaza’s north followed comments on Sunday by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said the “intense phase” of the war was winding down after almost nine months.

Experts say they foresee a potentially prolonged next phase.

Omer Dostri, a military expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said he expects the army to reduce its ground presence and to increasingly use drones and fighter jets “to further dismantle Hamas”.

On Friday in the Shujaiya area an AFP correspondent witnessed an air strike and saw smoke rising. Artillery fire boomed.

– ‘Significant strikes’ –

On Thursday a military spokesman told residents and displaced Gazans, in a social media message, to leave “for your safety”.

They were asked to head south, to a declared “humanitarian zone” about 25 kilometres (15 miles) away.

An AFP photographer saw many Palestinians leaving on foot, carrying their belongings through rubble-strewn streets.

Hamas said Israeli forces were “starting a ground incursion”, reporting “several” dead as “thousands flee under relentless bombing”.

Israel has killed at least 37,765 people, most of them women and children, according to data from the local health ministry.

On Friday the military announced the death of another soldier, aged 19, during combat in southern Gaza. This brings to 314 the number killed since ground operations began in the territory.

Elsewhere in the coastal strip, paramedics on Friday reported three people killed in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza.

AFP images showed the municipal building had been destroyed.

Colleagues prayed over the bodies of four civil defence volunteers killed during bombardment of the nearby Nuseirat refugee camp, other AFP images showed.

Orange work vests lay on top of their white-shrouded bodies.

Witnesses on Friday reported artillery fire in Nuseirat.

– ‘Milestone’ –

In Gaza, most of the population has been uprooted and much of the territory’s infrastructure has been destroyed, leaving residents struggling to survive.

A UN-backed assessment this week said almost half a million people in Gaza are still experiencing “catastrophic” hunger.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, on its website, says it was created “precisely to supersede potential political interferences through technical neutrality”, and that its parameters are based on international standards.

An Israeli government spokesman dismissed the report, partly because “it’s based upon data from Hamas’s own health institutions”.

UNICEF, the UN children’s fund, said Thursday that Israel had agreed to restore power to a desalination plant in southern Gaza. The “important milestone” could provide much-needed water to a million displaced people, it said.