Fighting yesterday raged across the Gaza Strip, whose health ministry reported a surging death toll, as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) said that four of its members were killed by a strike in Syria that it blamed on Israel.
The Syria strike is the latest regional incident raising fears of wider conflagration.
It came even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden discussed the postwar future of Gaza, where the humanitarian situation remains dire.
Photo: AFP
Gaza’s health ministry reported at least 165 people killed over the previous 24 hours — by far the largest such toll it has issued in days, and more than double the previous day’s figure.
An Agence France-Presse correspondent reported gunfire, airstrikes and tank shelling into the morning, particularly in southern Gaza’s Khan Yunis.
Israel is pressing southward, after the army early this month said the Hamas command structure in northern Gaza had been dismantled, leaving only isolated fighters.
However, the armed wing of Hamas reported fierce combat with Israeli troops in north Gaza yesterday.
The military said that troops backed by air and naval support were striking militant infrastructure throughout the Gaza Strip, including the north.
An Israeli strike on Damascus killed the IRGC’s spy chief for Syria and three other Guards members, Iranian media reported.
Israel has intensified attacks on targets in Syria, often against Iran-backed forces, since the Israel-Hamas war began on Oct. 7.
Hamas, like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, is an ally of Israel’s archfoe Iran.
The unprecedented October attacks by Hamas resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, a tally based on official Israeli figures showed.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in response. Its relentless bombardment and ground offensive have killed at least 24,927 people, mostly women and children, Gaza’s health ministry says.
Biden said it was still possible Netanyahu could agree to some form of Palestinian state, after the two leaders spoke for the first time in nearly a month.
Netanyahu had on Thursday said that Israel “must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River,” which “contradicts the idea of [Palestinian] sovereignty.”
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