With Israel urgent its offensive in Gaza, its forces have been engaged in intense battles on Monday in three areas of the strip the place Israeli officers imagine Hamas militants nonetheless have strongholds.
Khan Younis
Khan Younis is the most important metropolis in southern Gaza. Its prewar inhabitants of about 200,000 individuals swelled within the first month of the struggle, after Israel ordered civilians to go away the northern a part of the strip forward of its floor invasion. Many Hamas fighters are additionally believed to have moved south, and Khan Younis — its housing blocks, hospitals and shelters overflowing with civilians — was not spared within the early preventing. Israel repeatedly focused town with airstrikes.
The Israeli army now describes Khan Younis as “Hamas’s army capital” and, in latest weeks, instructed civilians there to flee towards the border as its forces pushed south. The town is residence to Yahya Sinwar, the chief of Hamas in Gaza. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, stated in a video posted final week on social media: “Our forces are encircling Sinwar’s home. He can escape, however it’s only a matter of time till we attain him.”
Jabaliya
Jabaliya began out as a refugee camp many years in the past and has turn out to be a densely constructed neighborhood of residence blocks in northern Gaza that’s residence to roughly 100,000 individuals. Lots of them are Palestinians and their descendants who fled or have been expelled from their houses throughout the struggle sparked by Israel’s creation in 1948.
Jabaliya has lengthy been thought-about a Hamas stronghold. It additionally has a storied place in Palestinian historical past: It was the place the primary rebellion in opposition to Israel, recognized in Arabic because the Intifada, started on Dec. 9, 1987.
Within the many years since, it has been the scene of preventing in almost each spasm of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, and it has been subjected to repeated airstrikes because the outset of the present struggle on Oct. 7.
On Oct. 31, Israel used not less than two 2,000-pound bombs throughout an airstrike on Jabaliya, based on consultants and an evaluation carried out by The New York Occasions of satellite tv for pc photos, pictures and movies. Hospital officers stated that dozens of civilians have been killed and a whole bunch wounded within the strike. Israel stated it was focusing on a Hamas commander and fighters, in addition to the community of underground tunnels utilized by Hamas to cover weapons and fighters.
Shajaiye
One other neighborhood in northern Gaza, Shajaiye can also be a densely packed space that has been equally struck by Israeli airstrikes because the struggle started.
Israel has lengthy stated the neighborhood features as a base for Hamas, and it was the scene of a bloody Israeli assault in an earlier battle in Gaza in 2014. The preventing in July that 12 months resulted in what was one of many deadliest single days for the Palestinians and for the Israeli army in that struggle. No less than 60 Palestinians and 13 Israeli troopers and officers have been killed in Shajaiye in an assault that the then-secretary basic of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon, known as “an atrocious motion.”
