THE RUMBLE OF TANKS
Civil defence rescuers in Hamas-run Gaza reported a total of 11 people killed in the Israeli bombardment of Deir el-Balah and in air strikes on Jabalia refugee camp.
The latest killings helped push 40,099 the death toll from the Gaza health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and militant deaths.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel that started the war resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
The Israeli military said troops continued operations in central and southern Gaza and “eliminated” militants in Rafah, on the territory’s border with Egypt.
From the Israeli-designated safe zone in southern Gaza’s Al-Mawasi, a fearful Lina Saleha, 44, said she could hear “constant artillery shelling” and the rumble of tanks “getting closer.”
In the occupied West Bank, an attack in a Jewish settlement killed an Israeli man, a hospital said, three days after a deadly settler raid in a nearby Palestinian village.
In Lebanon, the UN said three peacekeepers were lightly injured in a blast in the country’s south.
Iran and its regional allies have vowed retaliation for Haniyeh’s death in Tehran – which Israel has not claimed responsibility for – and for an Israeli strike in Beirut that killed a top Hezbollah commander.
US officials have indirectly heard that Iran “want to see a ceasefire, they don’t want to see regional escalation,” the US official said.
Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 111 are still held in Gaza including 39 the military says are dead. More than 100 were freed during a one-week truce in November.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club watchdog said that since the Gaza war began, Israeli forces have detained “more than 10,000 Palestinians” in the West Bank and annexed east Jerusalem, which Israel seized in 1967.
