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Israeli ground forces pushed deeper into the Gaza Strip, bombed targets in Syria and carried out a raid in the occupied West Bank overnight, as the country’s war with Hamas threatened to escalate on multiple fronts.
The Israeli military said on Monday that it had killed dozens of Hamas militants in fighting in Gaza and that additional “infantry, armour, engineers and artillery” had entered the Palestinian coastal enclave as Gaza locals said some of Israel’s forces had reached the outskirts of Gaza City.
Daniel Hagari, Israel Defense Forces spokesperson, said Israel was ratcheting up its activities in Gaza. But he declined to provide details of the locations of Israeli troops after footage was posted online appearing to show an Israeli tank and bulldozer on the outskirts of Gaza City on Salah al-Deen Road.
The road is the main inland north-south axis in the Gaza Strip.
Bashar, a freelance cameraman who was travelling with the person who filmed the video, said the tank had shelled a private car in front of them.
“The driver was surprised by the presence of an Israeli bulldozer and a tank,” Bashar said. “He tried to go back but he was shelled. There was also a small bus. We honked and screamed for him to go back but he did not hear us and was also unfortunately hit.”
Overnight Israel’s air force bombed “military infrastructure” in Syria after rockets were launched from the country, and one of its jets targeted militants in the city of Jenin in the north of the West Bank. Palestinian health ministry officials said four Palestinians had been killed in the fighting.
Meanwhile, police said that they had “neutralised” a man in Jerusalem after he stabbed a police officer in the east of the city.
Hamas also released a video of three of the more than 230 hostages it holds in Gaza, in what Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as an act of “brutal psychological propaganda”.
In the video, a woman identified as Danielle Aloni, a 44-year-old from the town of Yavneh, said Netanyahu should release Palestinian prisoners so she and the other captives could return home.
The Israeli prime minister later said Israel was “doing everything to return the hostages and missing home”.
Diplomats are seeking to prevent the hostilities between Israel and Hamas from spilling over into a broader regional conflict, with the US deploying extra resources to the Middle East and warning Iran and its proxies to stay out of the fighting.
Hagari said Israel was prepared for a flare-up in hostilities on its northern border with Lebanon, where its forces have been engaged in escalating cross-border fire with militants from the Iran-backed Hizbollah militant group in recent weeks.
Israeli forces struck targets in Lebanon on Sunday and Monday after rockets were fired deeper into northern Israel than at any point since fighting between Hamas and Israel erupted this month.
“IDF troops are deployed and ready with high readiness and awareness along the entire border,” Hagari said in a briefing on Monday morning. “Every terrorist cell Hizbollah sends to the fence will be killed. Every terrorist cell that tries to fire at our territory will be killed.”
The IDF also said it had hit more than 600 targets in Gaza in recent days, including weapons depots, anti-tank missile launching posts and hide-outs used by Hamas militants, as it continued to build up its ground operations in the coastal enclave.
Israel has been pounding the impoverished enclave since Hamas militants carried out the deadliest attack on Israeli soil on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people as well as taking the hostages, according to Israeli officials, in an assault that sent shockwaves through the Jewish state.
The Israeli bombardment has killed more than 8,000 people in Gaza and injured more than 20,000, according to Palestinian officials. Israel has also severely limited supplies of electricity, water, fuel and food to the territory, prompting aid agencies to warn of a burgeoning humanitarian catastrophe.
In a call with Netanyahu on Sunday night, US president Joe Biden said there was a need to “immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance” to civilians in Gaza, the White House said.
A UN spokesperson said 47 truckloads of aid had entered Gaza on Sunday, the most in a single day since October 21, bringing the total to 131 since that date. However, aid agencies have criticised Israel for refusing to allow bigger consignments, adding that the amount delivered so far was a fraction of the 500 trucks a day that arrived before October 7.
In a sign of mounting desperation in Gaza, UNRWA, the main UN agency providing relief in the territory, said at the weekend that thousands of Palestinians were breaking into its warehouses to seize wheat flour and other staples.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said thousands of families in Gaza were “sleeping in makeshift shelters or out in the open with little food and water”. It said hospitals were on the verge of collapse and wastewater plants were no longer functioning.
Additional reporting by Guy Chazan in Jerusalem
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