Gaza
Reuters
Fears that the Israel-Hamas war could mushroom into a wider Middle East conflict rose on Sunday with Washington warning of a significant risk to US interests in the region as ally Israel pounded Gaza and clashes on its border with Lebanon intensified.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 266 Palestinians, including 117 children, had been killed by Israeli air strikes in the past 24 hours in the enclave, to which Israel laid “total siege” after a deadly mass infiltration into Israel by Hamas gunmen on 7th October.
Palestinians gather around the remains of a mosque destroyed in Israeli strikes, as the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in the northern Gaza Strip, on 22nd October, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Anas al-Shareef
In neighbouring Syria, where Hamas’ main regional backer Iran has a military presence, Israeli missiles hit Damascus and Aleppo international airports early on Sunday, putting both out of service and killing two workers, Syrian state media said.
Along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group has clashed with Israeli forces in support of Hamas in the deadliest escalation of frontier violence since an Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006.
With violence around its heavily guarded borders increasing, Israel on Sunday added 14 communities close to Lebanon and Syria to its evacuation contingency plan in the north of the country.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh called on the international community to create “a united front” to stop Israel’s attacks against Gaza and allow in desperately needed aid which has only begun to trickle in.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Saturday that Washington would send more military assets to the Middle East in support of Israel and strengthen the US defence posture in the region after “recent escalations by Iran and its proxy forces” – a reference to Hezbollah, Palestinian and other militants.
Austin told ABC’s This Week programme on Sunday: “We’re concerned about potential escalation. In fact, what we’re seeing…is the prospect of a significant escalation of attacks on our troops and our people throughout the region.
“If any group or any country is looking to widen this conflict and take advantage of this very unfortunate situation…our advice is: don’t,” he added.
US President Joe Biden on Sunday held a call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss the conflict, the White House said.
Netanyahu said French President Emmanuel Macron and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte will visit Israel this week.
An Israeli flag flutters from a self-propelled howitzer near Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel, on 22nd October, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Violeta Santos Moura
Washington has deployed a significant amount of naval power to the Middle East, including two aircraft carriers, support ships and about 2,000 Marines, to help deter attacks by Iran-affiliated forces.
Austin said a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system and extra Patriot air defence missile system battalions will be sent to the region and more troops put on standby.
Iranian security officials told Reuters Iran’s strategy was for Middle East proxies like Hezbollah to pursue limited strikes on Israeli and US targets but to avoid a major escalation that would draw in Tehran, a high-wire act for the Islamic Republic.
Israeli blitz on Hamas-ruled Gaza
Israel unleashed an aerial blitz on Gaza to its south-west after Hamas militants breached the border on 7th October and killed 1,400 people, mainly civilians, and took 212 hostages back to Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israel’s air and missile strikes in retaliation had killed at least 4,741 and wounded 15,898, with over a million of the densely populated enclave’s 2.3 million people displaced.
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Israel has amassed tanks and troops near the fenced border around Gaza for a planned ground invasion aiming to annihilate Hamas, after several inconclusive wars dating to its seizure of power there in 2007, after Israel ended a 38-year occupation.
Hamas’s armed wing said it had fired more rockets at Tel Aviv on Sunday. There was no immediate word of damage or casualties.
With Israel keeping up daily bombings, Palestinians said they received renewed Israeli military warnings to move from Gaza’s north to the south to avoid the deadliest theatre of the war.
They said military leaflets dropped on the territory, just 45 kilometres long, contained the added warning that they could be identified as sympathisers with a “terrorist organisation” if they stayed put.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said most of the dead from air strikes over the past 24 hours were in Gaza’s south. Israel says it is only targeting militants and that they often use residential buildings as cover.
The first humanitarian aid convoy allowed into Gaza since war erupted arrived in southern Gaza from Egypt on Saturday after days of negotiations. The UN said the 20-truck convoy brought life-saving medical supplies and some food.
A second convoy of aid trucks entered the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing on Sunday en route to the Gaza Strip, Egyptian sources said, shortly before witnesses reported a blast and ambulance sirens on the border.
Soon afterwards, Israel’s military said one of its tanks accidentally hit an Egyptian position near the border. Several Egyptian border guards sustained minor injuries, a spokesperson for the Egyptian army said.
The UN humanitarian office said the volume of aid entering so far was just four per cent of the daily average before the hostilities and a fraction of what was needed with food, water, medicines and fuel stocks running out.
People inspect the damage after an Israeli strike hit a compound beneath a mosque that the Israeli military said was being used by militants to organise attacks, in Jenin refugee camp in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on 22nd October, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Mohammad Ateeq
Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli aircraft struck a compound beneath a mosque early on Sunday that the military said was being used by militants to organise attacks, and Palestinian medics said at least one person was killed.
The Israeli air strike is at least the second in recent days to hit the West Bank, where violence has surged since Hamas gunmen from Gaza carried out a deadly 7th October rampage in Israel.
Israel said the compound beneath al-Ansar Mosque, in Jenin refugee camp, belonged to operatives from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad who were responsible for attacks in recent months.
“Intel was recently received which indicated that the terrorists, [who] were neutralised, were organizing an imminent terror attack,” the military said in a statement.
The military released images that it said showed an entrance to a bunker under the mosque. It also released a diagram that it said showed where militants had stored weapons there.
Jenin refugee camp, a Palestinian militant stronghold, was the focus of a major Israeli military operation earlier this year.
Footage on social media, appearing to show the scene of the air strike, showed a gaping hole in one of the mosque’s exterior walls, surrounded by debris. Several dozen Palestinians are seen assessing the damage, as ambulance sirens blare in the background.
The Palestinian Red Crescent ambulance service said at least one Palestinian was killed and three others injured. It had earlier said that two people were killed.
Residents of the camp said they received warnings from the Israeli military to stay away from the militants due to an impending incursion into the camp. They said the military did not specify a date.
Since the 7th October Hamas rampage, which has drawn two weeks of lethal Israeli bombardment of Gaza, at least 84 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed in clashes with Israeli forces, Palestinian officials say.
On Thursday, Israel’s military said it raided and carried out an air strike in a refugee camp near the central city of Tulkarm. The military said the raid was aimed in part at apprehending suspects and confiscating weapons. Palestinians said at least 12 were killed.
– With ALI SAWAFTA, RAMI AYYUB and the Washington and Jerusalem bureaux.
