Israel’s military intensified its assault on Hamas militants in Gaza, as the United States and other global powers called for aid to continue flowing into the besieged strip to prevent an already grave humanitarian crisis from worsening.
Israel’s military said it had hit more than 400 militant targets in Gaza overnight and killed dozens of Hamas fighters, including three deputy battalion commanders.
In a statement, the military said that among the targets hit was a tunnel which allowed Hamas to infiltrate Israel from the sea and Hamas command centres in mosques. Reuters could not immediately verify the report.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that more than 120 Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes that targeted inhabited homes in different areas of the Gaza Strip.
Earlier, Israeli Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi suggested Israel had no intention of curbing its strikes.
“We want to bring Hamas to a state of full dismantling,” Halevi said in a statement late on Monday.
“We are well prepared for the ground operations in the south,” he added, referring to southern Israel, which abuts Gaza. “Troops who have more time are better prepared, and that is what we are doing now.”
The Palestinian health ministry said the Gaza death toll had topped 5,000 in two weeks of Israeli air strikes in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which the Islamist militant group killed more than 1,400 people.
Hamas on Monday freed two Israeli women among the more than 200 hostages taken during its Oct. 7 assault. They were the third and fourth hostages to be released.
(Inputs from Reuters)