Gaza Strip: Israeli forces struck southern Gaza’s main city on Monday after a rocket barrage claimed by militant group Islamic Jihad, and as shelling and fighting raged on across the besieged Palestinian territory.
A group of Palestinian detainees meanwhile returned to the Gaza Strip, including the director of its biggest hospital who recounted “severe torture” in Israeli custody.
The Israeli military said that about “20 projectiles were identified crossing from the area of Khan Yunis” in a rare salvo after nearly nine months of devastating conflict.
The rockets were aimed at Israeli communities near the Gaza border and were fired in retaliation for Israeli “crimes... against our Palestinian people”, said Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Islamic Jihad which has fought alongside Hamas.
Most launches were intercepted, the Israeli military said, reporting no casualties and saying artillery was “striking the sources of the fire”.
Elsewhere in Gaza, witnesses and the civil defence agency reported Israeli air strikes including in the southern Rafah area and the central Nuseirat refugee camp.
Witnesses reported constant Israeli tank fire in Gaza City’s Shujaiya district where battles raged for a fifth day, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged Israeli forces were engaged in a “difficult fight”.
The military said troops “eliminated numerous terrorists” in raids in Shujaiya, where air strikes also killed “approximately 20” militants.
Israeli forces were also operating in Rafah and in central Gaza, a statement added.
Netanyahu, who recently declared that the “intense phase” of the war was winding down, said on Sunday troops were “operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip”. “This is a difficult fight that is being waged above ground... and below ground” in tunnels. The war started with Hamas’ October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195
people.