The Israeli military said on Thursday that it had briefly sent tanks into the northern Gaza Strip overnight as part of preparations for the next stage of fighting after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that a ground invasion of the enclave was likely.
It was at least the second time in the conflict that Israel had conducted a limited ground raid in Gaza after it said some troops had briefly entered the territory two weeks ago. The military said in a Telegram post that it had hit multiple targets and “operated to prepare the battlefield”, without offering details.
Nearly three weeks after the war began, it remains unclear if or when Israel will launch a ground invasion of Gaza. In a televised speech on Wednesday evening, Netanyahu did not offer details on the scope of a possible invasion but vowed that Israel would exact a price for the October 7 incursion led by the Hamas armed group that resulted in the massacre of more than 1,400 people.
The US has asked Israel to delay a ground invasion of Gaza for a few days to give it more time to provide more protection for US troops at bases in the region, according to US officials. The Biden administration has also been trying to buy more time for hostage negotiations and to allow more aid to enter Gaza. It also wants the Israeli military to refine its military objectives and potentially move away from a grinding urban fight that would incur large casualties.
In the meantime, Israel has been relentlessly bombing Gaza from the air, carrying out more than 250 strikes over the past day, its military said. Israel says it is hitting Hamas targets, but Palestinians accuse it of indiscriminately killing civilians. The Hamas-run Gazan health ministry says more than 6,500 have died. Those figures cannot be independently verified, and President Joe Biden on Wednesday questioned their accuracy.
Israeli airstrikes in the southern city of Khan Younis levelled more than eight homes belonging to an extended family, killing at least 15 people. Ambulances raced to the scene as dust from the collapsing buildings hung in the air.
The blast zone was a chaotic wasteland of crumbled concrete and twisted metal. Rescuers carried wounded people covered in grey dust.
The body of a boy was dug out from beneath a concrete slab, where his head had come to rest next to the foot of another person entombed in the wreckage.
Benny Gantz, a retired general and a member of Israel’s war cabinet, said any possible ground offensive would be only “one stage in a long-term process that includes security, political and social aspects that will take years”.
“The campaign will soon ramp up with greater force,” he added.
During the overnight raid, soldiers killed fighters and destroyed militant infrastructure and anti-tank missile launching positions, the military said.
It said that no Israelis were wounded. There was no immediate confirmation of any Palestinian casualties.
Israeli Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a military spokesman, said the limited incursion was “part of our preparations for the next stages of the war”.
Israel also said it had also carried out around 250 airstrikes across Gaza in the last 24 hours, targeting tunnel shafts, rocket launchers and other militant infrastructure.
The Gaza health Ministry says more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war — a figure that includes the disputed toll from an explosion at a hospital.
That is more than three times the number of Palestinians killed in the six-week-long Gaza war in 2014. The ministry’s toll includes more than 2,900 minors and more than 1,500 women.
The fighting has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians slain during the initial Hamas attack, according to the Israeli government. Hamas also holds at least 224 hostages in Gaza.
The warning by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, over depleting fuel supplies raised alarm that the crisis could worsen.
