Israel intensifies attacks on central Gaza as Netanyahu warns fighting could go on for months

Israeli jets intensified attacks on central Gaza on Sunday, residents and medics said, as battles raged through the rubble of towns and refugee camps.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said he expected the war which began in early October would take “many more months” to end.

Air strikes pounded al-Maghazi and al-Bureij in the centre of the Palestinian enclave, killing eight people in one house and driving more to flee to Rafah on the border with Egypt from front lines where Israeli tanks are battling Hamas fighters. At least 35 people were killed in the latest round of bombardment, hospital officials said.

A Red Crescent video published on Sunday showed the chaotic aftermath of strikes in central Gaza, as rescuers worked in the dark to carry an injured child from smoking rubble.

Under the arrangement first suggested by Nicosia in November, cargo would undergo security inspection in the Cypriot port of Larnaca before being ferried to the Gaza coast, 370 km (230 miles) away, rather than through neighbouring Egypt or Israel.

If the plan goes ahead, it would mark the first easing of an Israeli naval blockade imposed on Gaza in 2007 after militant Hamas Islamists seized control of the Palestinian enclave.

Israel has described the corridor as a means of ending its civilian ties to Gaza, where it has been waging an 12-week-old offensive in retaliation for a cross-border killing and kidnapping spree by Hamas gunmen.

It emerged on Sunday that Israel is prepared to let ships deliver aid to the Gaza Strip “immediately” as part of a proposed sea corridor from Cyprus, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said on Sunday, naming four European countries as potential participants.

Under the arrangement, first suggested by Nicosia in November, cargo would undergo security inspection in the Cypriot port of Larnaca before being ferried to the Gaza coast, 370 km away, rather than through neighbouring Egypt or Israel.

If the plan goes ahead, it would mark the first easing of an Israeli naval blockade imposed on Gaza in 2007 after militant Hamas Islamists seized control of the Palestinian enclave. Israel has described the corridor as a means of ending its civilian ties to Gaza.

The stated goal of Israel’s military in the ongoing conflict is to eliminate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched a surprise cross-border assault on Israeli towns on October 7th, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking 240 hostages.

Palestinian health ministry casualty figures do not differentiate between fighters and civilians but the ministry has said 70 per cent of Gaza’s dead were women and under-18s. Israel disputes Palestinian casualty figures and says it has killed 8,000 fighters.

The war and lack of supplies has left 40 per cent of Gazans at risk of famine, the Gaza director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on social media. Israel blockaded most food, fuel and medicine after the October 7th attack.

The United States, Israel’s main ally, has urged it to scale down the war and European states have signalled alarm at the extent of Palestinian civilian suffering.

However, Mr Netanyahu’s comments on Saturday, when he said he would not resign despite opinion polls showing his government is broadly unpopular and defended his security record, indicate there will be no easing up any time soon.

He said the “the war is at its height” and Israel would have to retake control of Gaza’s border with Egypt – an area now crammed with civilians who have fled the carnage across the rest of the enclave, leading aid agencies to set up “tent cities” for displaced families sleeping rough on the streets.

In his last comments as Israeli foreign minister before switching to the energy portfolio on Sunday, Eli Cohen said the border was the likely source of weaponry Hamas had obtained over recent years.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately comment on Israeli plans to retake the border area or on whether Hamas weapons had entered Gaza from Egypt.

“We moved here from Khan Younis on the basis that Rafah was a safe place. There is no space in Rafah as it is overcrowded with displaced,” said Umm Mohammed (45), a displaced Palestinian woman sheltering by the border. “If they control the border where will people go?” she asked, saying this would be “a disaster”.

The war risks morphing into a wider regional conflict involving Hamas ally Iran and groups Tehran supports across the Middle East.

Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hizbullah have exchanged regular cross-border fire. Israel has hit Iran-linked targets in Syria. And Iran-backed groups have attacked US targets in Iraq.

US naval helicopters sank three of the four small boats the Houthis had used in the attack and drove the fourth back to shore, the military said.

Israel says 174 of its military personnel have been killed in the Gaza fighting but that its operations are making progress, including by destroying some Hamas tunnels under the enclave.

Hamas media reported on Saturday that Abdel-Fattah Maali, a senior member of the group’s armed wing, was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza. It said Maali, originally from the West Bank, was freed during a 2011 prisoner swap and expelled to Gaza. The reports did not specify when he was killed.

Palestinian media reported that a strike on Saturday night had killed a senior cleric, Sheikh Youssef Salama, who had acted as religious affairs minister in Gaza before Hamas took over the enclave.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad – both sworn to Israel’s destruction – have said they continue to target Israeli forces operating in the enclave. – Reuters