After over 100 days of war, Palestinians fight in hard-hit areas of Gaza and fire rockets at Israel
World
After over 100 days of war, Palestinians fight in hard-hit areas of Gaza and fire rockets at Israel
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Palestinian militants battled Israeli forces in devastated northern Gaza and launched a barrage of rockets from farther south on Tuesday in a show of force more that 100 days into Israel’s massive air and ground campaign against the tiny coastal enclave.
The fighting in the north, which was the first target of Israel’s offensive and where entire neighborhoods have been pulverized, showed how far Israel remains from achieving its goals of dismantling Hamas and returning scores of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war.
Meanwhile, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is worsening, with 85% of the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians having fled their homes and U.N. agencies warning of mass starvation and disease. The conflict threatens to widen after the U.S. and Israel traded strikes with Iranian-backed groups across the region.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas’ military and governing capabilities to ensure that the Oct. 7 attack is never repeated. Militants stormed into Israel from Gaza that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and capturing around 250 people. With strong diplomatic and military support from the United States, Israel has resisted international calls for a cease-fire.
Nearly half of the hostages were released during a weeklong truce in November, but more than 100 remain in captivity. Hamas has said it will not release any others until Israel ends the war.
STRIKES AND COUNTERSTRIKES ACROSS THE REGION
The longer the war goes on, the more it threatens to ignite other fronts across the region.
Iran fired missiles late Monday at what it said were Israeli “spy headquarters” in an upscale neighborhood near the sprawling U.S. Consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Iraq and the U.S. condemned the strikes, which killed several civilians, and Baghdad recalled its ambassador to Iran in protest.
Iranian-backed groups in Iraq and Syria have carried out dozens of attacks on bases housing U.S. forces, and a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad killed an Iranian-backed militia leader earlier this month.
Elsewhere, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have resumed their attacks on container ships in the Red Sea following a wave of U.S.-led strikes last week. The U.S. military said Tuesday that two Navy SEALS are missing after a raid last week on a ship carrying Iranian-made missile parts and weapons bound for Yemen.
Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group have exchanged fire along the border nearly every day since the start of the war in Gaza. The strikes and counterstrikes have grown more severe since an Israeli strike killed Hamas’ deputy political leader in Beirut earlier this month, raising fears of a repeat of the 2006 war between the two longtime foes.
