Two cities devastated as Israeli offensive ends

Yenín. Israel yesterday ended a month of military operations in the central and southern Gaza Strip, in which it claimed to have killed more than 250 Palestinian fighters.

Troops of the 98th Division have completed their divisional operation in the Khan Yunis and Deir al Balah area, after nearly a month of simultaneous operational activity above and below the surface.a military statement said.

Troops eliminated more than 250 terrorists and destroyed dozens of infrastructure unitshe added. A military spokesman confirmed to AFP that no other offensives are being carried out in these areas at the moment.

Residents of Khan Yunis described how after their return to the main city in the south of the Palestinian territory, ruled by Hamas since 2007, We found our houses and those of our neighbors destroyed. The corpse of one of our neighbors was lying there decomposed.said Amal al Astal, 48. Palestinians who returned to Deir al Balah this week described similar scenes.

The war in Gaza broke out on October 7, when Hamas fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an official Israeli toll. They also took 251 hostages, of whom 105 remain in Gaza, including 33 who the Israeli military declared dead. In response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an offensive that has already left 40,602 dead in Gaza, according to the territory’s Ministry of Health, which did not specify how many were civilians and how many were combatants.

Meanwhile, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in X that Israel needs to ensure that the death wish of Meshal (the Hamas leader) and his friends in the leadership of the terrorist organization is fulfilled in the near future.referring to Meshal’s recent statement that Hamas must return to the practice of suicide bombings to fight Israeli forces.

This comes 10 days after a failed suicide attack in southern Tel Aviv.

On the other hand, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that the polio vaccination campaign will start this Sunday in the strip, where Israel has already accepted a humanitarian pause of at least three days in Gaza for this purpose.

Meanwhile, in the reoccupied West Bank, the third day of the Israeli military operation saw three militants killed, including a Hamas military leader, bringing the number of Palestinians killed in 72 hours to 19. Israel launched a large-scale offensive in the northern West Bank on Wednesday, with shelling and raids by armoured convoys in cities including Jenin, Nablus, Tubas, Tulkarem, and two refugee camps.

Tel Aviv said in a statement yesterday that it had killed a Hamas commander in Jenin, whom it identified as Wassem Hazem.

According to the Israeli military, Hazem was the head of Hamas in Jenin and was involved in orchestrating shootings and bombings against Israelis.

Hazem was killed in a vehicle containing weapons during a shootout. Two other Hamas militants were shot down by a drone as they tried to escape from the car.

For its part, the Islamist armed group called on the population of the West Bank to unite to stop invasion and criminal behavior from Tel Aviv.

The massacres, crimes and violations of the occupation in the West Bank will not undermine the steadfastness of our peoplethe group said in a statement.

Hamas claimed that Israel has a plan to seize from the lands of the West Bank and expel to the population, in reference to the statements of Katz, who recently suggested the possibility of temporarily evacuating West Bank residents security.

Meanwhile, Israel has approved the permanence of its troops along the Philadelphia corridor, bordering Gaza with Egypt, as an unappealable condition for any possible ceasefire agreement, with one vote against, that of Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who considers that this decision means giving up the hostages.