IDF announces ground troop deployment near the besieged Palestinian enclave
Team Clarion
GAZA — Ignoring global outcry, Israel continued on Friday to pound the Gaza Strip with air raids and artillery shells. Besides, the Israeli military has also started deploying ground troops and tanks in its operations against the besieged Palestinian enclave. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) announced just after midnight Friday that its “air and ground troops are currently attacking in the Gaza Strip.”
The ongoing Israeli attacks have killed 122 Palestinians so far, including 31 children and 19 women ever since fresh Israeli incursions began on Monday, according to Palestinian health officials. At least 830 others have been injured in addition to heavy damages to residential buildings across the enclave.
Hundreds of Palestinian families have taken shelter in United Nations-run schools in northern Gaza to escape Israeli artillery fire, with residents reporting that that the Strip had experienced its “most violent” night.
According to Anadolu, Israeli fighter jets on Friday destroyed a house in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. The bombing of the two-storey house that belongs to the Al-Astal family did not result in any casualties. Earlier, Israeli jets launched airstrikes on a site in Khan Yunis and north of Gaza.
Another Anadolu report said all members of a Palestinian family were killed on Thursday night as Israeli warplanes continue to bombard northern Gaza.
The Tanani family which consisted of a father, a pregnant mother and four children were in their home in Beit Hanoun town when the Israeli army bombed the area without any warning. The entire residential square was destroyed, including the family’s home, the report said.
The Israel Defence Forces did not immediately comment further on the ground operation, and it is unclear if it amounts to a full-scale incursion into Gaza. Rockets from the strip into Israel were also continuing to be fired.
A Hamas spokesman said on Thursday that it would respond forcefully to any Israeli attack by land.
“Any ground invasion on any part of the Gaza Strip will be, by God, an opportunity for us to increase our killing and capturing of the enemy,” the spokesman said, according to the Hamas-affiliated Safa news outlet.
The Jerusalem Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, said that it has targetted Israeli sites adjacent to the Gaza Strip with several mortar shells.
Despite international calls for an immediate halt of all hostilities, including from United Nations chief Antonio Guterres, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged the offensive will continue “as needed to restore calm in the state of Israel”.
Hamas fired another barrage of rockets towards Israel, hitting the city of Ashkelon in the early hours on Friday.
At least six Israelis and one Indian national have also been killed. The Israeli army said hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.
Meanwhile, violence is brewing between Israeli settlers and Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank as well as in Israeli cities. That violence continued even on Thursday night.
In another potential escalation, at least three rockets were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel. Israeli forces have fired warning shots toward a group of protesters who crossed from Lebanon as part of a rally against the Israeli campaign in Gaza.
The army said some two dozen Palestinian and Lebanese youth had gathered at the border gate separating the two countries for a protest.. A few of those involved crossed the border into Israel.
The Israeli army said the group sabotaged the fence and set a fire in the area before returning to Lebanese territory.
Al-Manar TV station, owned by Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, said one Lebanese person was wounded in the incident. The report could not be immediately confirmed, says Aljazeera.
The present conflict began this week amid tensions in Jerusalem. There has also been widespread communal violence in Israeli cities between Jews and Arabs that continued Thursday night.