Heavy urban battles raged Monday in the bloodiest-ever war in Gaza, with more than 18,200 Palestinians and 104 Israeli soldiers reported dead amid a spiralling humanitarian crisis.
The war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attacks that killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel and saw dozens of hostages dragged back to Gaza.
It has warned the remaining 137 hostages won’t survive unless Israel meets its demands and frees more Palestinian prisoners.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Islamist group to “surrender now”, after his national security adviser claimed thousands of militants have been killed during the war, now in its third month.
“It is the beginning of the end of Hamas. I say to the Hamas terrorists: It’s over,” the right-wing premier said Sunday.
But brutal fighting continued Monday in Gaza, with Islamic Jihad militants saying they blew up a house in the southern Gazan city of Khan Yunis where Israeli soldiers were searching for a tunnel shaft.
Rockets fired from Gaza hit Holon on the edge of Tel Aviv, injuring a civilian and leaving a crater in a residential street.
Live AFPTV images showed a volcanic-like cloud of grey smoke rising after an explosion in central Gaza, while AFP correspondents reported night-time strikes and automatic weapons fire in Khan Yunis and bombings that shook several urban areas.
Israel had urged civilians to seek refuge in the far south, but the army has kept striking targets throughout the territory.
Umm Mohammed al-Jabri lost seven children in an air strike on Rafah, near Egypt, after fleeing there from Gaza City.
“I have four children left,” said Jabri, 56. “Last night they bombed the house we were in and destroyed it. They said Rafah would be a safe place. There is no safe place.”
The last death toll from the Hamas-run health ministry was 18,205, mostly women and children. It said 32 dead had arrived at Khan Yunis’s Nasser hospital alone in 24 hours.
