Israel is still fighting Hamas a year after the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel, and has opened a new front in Lebanon against Hezbollah, which has exchanged fire with Israel since the war in Gaza began. Israel vowed to attack Iran after Tehran launched ballistic missiles at it last week.
Expanding the conflict risks further involving the United States, which has provided crucial military and diplomatic support to Israel. Iran-allied militia groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen have already joined long-distance attacks against Israel. A stabbing and shooting attack at the central bus station in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba left one dead and 10 injured, according to first responders. Police did not identify the attacker but said they consider the incident a terrorist attack.
The attack came as Israel is on high alert ahead of events marking the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, which set in motion a year of violent escalation across the region.
Israeli forces return to Jabaliya
An Israeli strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central city of Deir al-Balah. Four other people were killed in an attack on a school-turned-shelter near the city. The Israeli military said both attacks targeted militants, without providing evidence. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that those killed in the mosque attack were all men. The Israeli military announced a new air and ground offensive in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, home to a densely populated refugee camp dating back to the 1948 war over the creation of Israel. Photos and videos circulated showing a column of tanks heading toward the area. The army surrounded Jabaliya as fighter jets hit militant targets before the advance. During the war, Israel has conducted several operations there, only to see the militants regroup later. The army also said three soldiers were severely wounded in the fighting in northern Gaza. Israel reiterated a warning it issued in the first weeks of the war, when it called for the complete evacuation of northern Gaza. It is estimated that up to 300,000 people have remained in the devastated north despite previous Israeli warnings that caused a million people to flee to the south. “We are in a new phase of the war,” the army said in leaflets dropped on the site. “These areas are considered dangerous combat zones.” Palestinian residents reported intense Israeli airstrikes in northern Gaza. Civil Defense, an emergency service operating within the Hamas-led government, said they recovered three bodies, including a woman and a child, after an attack hit a home in the Shati refugee camp. He added that there are four other people missing. Many people wrote on social media about the bombings and expressed their sorrow for their relatives. Imad Alarabid said on Facebook that an airstrike on his home in Jabaliya killed a dozen of his relatives, including his parents. Saeed Abu Elaish, a doctor at the Health Ministry, said he was injured and bleeding. “Pray for us,” he wrote on Facebook. Hassan Hamd, a freelance television journalist whose work had been broadcast on Al Jazeera and other television stations, died after his house in Jabaliya came under artillery fire. Anas al-Sharif, an Al Jazeera journalist in northern Gaza, confirmed his death. Nearly 42,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza since the war began, according to the Ministry of Health. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and militiamen, but many of the dead are women and children. Hamas-led militants killed about 1,200 people in the Oct. 7 attack and took another 250 hostages. They still hold about 100 captives, of whom a third are believed to have died.
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