The Israeli army bombed the Gaza Strip last night amid heightened warnings from around the world for restraint to protect civilians.
A total of about 400 targets have been hit in the small Palestinian enclave since clashes resumed on Friday, when a week-long ceasefire expired, killing at least 240 people, according to the health ministry there.
Hamas’s military wing and allied Islamic Jihad also said they had fired a “barrage of rocket fire” on Israeli cities, including Tel Aviv, on Saturday.
The Israeli army said that “more than 250 rockets” were fired and that two soldiers were killed.
An Israeli strike at dawn killed at least seven people in the Rafah sector of the southern Gaza Strip, the Hamas government said.
The Israeli army has been deployed on land in the north of the Gaza Strip, and has intensified airstrikes in the south, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have taken refuge due to the conflict, Agence France-Presse reported.
Palestinian media reported early this morning that the army was carrying out extensive artillery strikes and airstrikes across the Gaza Strip.
The southern city of Khan Younis is the target of the strike, the Shehab news website, close to Hamas, reported.
Israeli officials, meanwhile, claim they have put a mechanism in place to prevent aid workers and civilians in Gaza from being caught in the crossfire of the Israeli military and Hamas.
As an American official previously explained, an Israeli military officer will be in charge of coordinating between humanitarian organizations and soldiers on the ground so that they do not target humanitarian workers.
The Israeli military continues to use evacuation maps for Palestinians to avoid combat zones.
Spokesman Avihay Adrai announced on Platform X that Palestinians from several zones in Khan Yunis must go to designated safe areas.
The map divided the Gaza Strip into hundreds of small zones and the army urged Palestinians to pay attention to their number and follow the army’s new instructions.
The Israeli army announced this morning that the air force hit tunnels, command centers, ammunition warehouses, among other things, and that “the terrorist cell was eliminated by drone” during the night.
The navy shelled targets linked to Hamas, including military infrastructure, Hamas naval ships and weapons depots.
Negotiations on the renewal of the truce brokered by Qatar have been at a standstill since yesterday and a team of the Israeli intelligence service Mossad returned from Doha on the orders of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He said last night that there is no other way to win than by continuing the ground offensive.
Earlier, US Vice President Kamala Harris said that Israel must do much more to protect civilians, Beta reports.
