CYCLE OF VIOLENCE A premature baby lies in an incubator at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City north of Gaza on Sunday. Health officials say the hospital is about to shut down as it runs out of fuel and power, amid restrictions on supplies following Israel’s bombardment of that area. On Monday, residents outside the Palestinian city of Nablus in the West Bank are accompanied by armed men during a funeral for relatives killed by Israeli forces. —REUTERS
GAZA/JERUSALEM—Israel bombarded Gaza with more airstrikes on Monday ahead of an anticipated ground operation into the besieged Palestinian enclave, as the United Nations warned that civilians were running out of places to seek shelter.
In signs that the conflict was spreading, Israeli aircraft also struck southern Lebanon overnight and Israeli troops clashed with Palestinians in occupied West Bank, residents said.
More aid crossed the border into Gaza on Sunday, but the UN’s humanitarian agency, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), said it was just a fraction of the amount needed to help a desperate population short of food, water, medicine and fuel.
Health authorities in Gaza said at least 4,600 people have died in Israel’s two-week bombardment, after an assault on Oct. 7 by Hamas militants on southern Israeli communities in which 1,400 people were killed and 212 were taken hostage.
The Israeli military said on Monday morning that in the past 24 hours it had struck more than 320 targets in Gaza, including a tunnel housing Hamas fighters, and dozens of command and lookout posts.
It said in a statement that it destroyed sites “liable to endanger the troops who are preparing on the Gaza periphery for a ground maneuver,” as well as dozens of mortar and antitank missile launcher positions.
Palestinian media reported that the Israeli attacks concentrated on the Gaza Strip’s center and north.
A strike on a house near the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed several Palestinians and wounded others, according to media reports.
‘What we need to do’
Israeli troops and tanks are now massed on the Israeli-Gaza border, but how soon they might launch a ground invasion aimed at rooting out Hamas was not clear.
Asked in an interview with Army Radio if Washington was pressuring Israel to hold off the assault, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the US Eliav Benjamin said: “We and the US administration have been in dialogue from Day One. They understand that we are conducting the war in accordance with our interests.”
‘[At] the end of the day, we will do what we need to do when we need to do it,” he added.
Wide areas of Gaza have been flattened by the bombing campaign. Ocha said about 1.4 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million population were now internally displaced, with many seeking refuge in overcrowded UN emergency shelters.
Israel has ordered Gaza residents to evacuate the north to avoid being caught up in the fighting.
But Ocha cited anecdotal evidence indicating that possibly thousands of people who had fled were now returning to the north due to bombardments in the south and lack of shelter.
Hezbollah targets
Fears that the Israel-Hamas war could mushroom into a wider Middle East conflict rose over the weekend, with Washington warning of a significant risk to US interests in the region and announcing a new deployment of advanced air defenses.
Along Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, the Iran-backed Hezbollah group has clashed with Israeli forces in support of Hamas, in the deadliest escalation of frontier violence since the Israel-Hezbollah conflict in 2006.
Early on Monday, Israeli aircraft struck two Hezbollah cells in Lebanon that were planning to launch antitank missiles and rockets toward Israel, its military said, adding that it also struck other Hezbollah targets, including a compound and an observation post.
Hezbollah said one of its fighters was killed, without providing details. Israel’s military said seven soldiers have been killed on the Lebanese border since the latest conflict began.
In the West Bank, two Palestinians were killed at the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, the Palestinian health ministry said on Monday.
Residents told Reuters that Israeli forces raided the camp and made many arrests, as they clashed with gunmen and some youths who threw stones. The Israeli army has not issued a statement about the incident.
China’s Middle East special envoy Zhai Jun, who is visiting the region, warned that the risk of a large-scale ground conflict was rising and that spillover conflicts in the region were “worrisome,” Chinese state media said on Monday.
Iranian security officials told Reuters that Iran’s strategy was for Middle East proxies like Hezbollah to pursue limited strikes on Israeli and US targets, but to avoid a major escalation that would draw in Tehran.
Flow of aid
Meanwhile Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh has called for international unity to stop Israel’s attacks in Gaza and allow aid, as a second convoy of 14 trucks on Sunday night entered the Rafah crossing from Egypt.
The White House said US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and both affirmed there would be continued flow of aid into Gaza.
But the volume of aid entering so far was just 4 percent of the daily average before the hostilities, according to Ocha. The shipments did not include fuel. —REUTERS