Israel expands military offensive to the south of Gaza

Situation in the Middle East - Israel expands military offensive to the south of Gaza

Israel has expanded its military offensive to the south of the Gaza Strip, massively stepping up air strikes on Islamist Hamas targets.

Leading US politicians urged Israel to better protect civilians during the fighting. Previously, negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a new ceasefire and an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners had been broken off for the time being. Hamas then declared that it would only release hostages again when Israel ended its "aggression" and a permanent ceasefire was in place. A Unicef spokesperson expressed his shock after a visit to the Gaza Strip.

Israeli army continues bombardment in the Gaza Strip

During the night, Israeli warplanes and helicopters attacked "terror targets", including tunnel shafts, command centers and weapons depots, according to the military. The previous day, Israel's naval units had also attacked Hamas "terror targets" and flanked the deployment of ground troops, it said.

According to the Israeli army, it has found more than 800 tunnel shafts since the beginning of the Gaza war. Around 500 of these have been destroyed by explosives and other means. Some of the tunnel shafts were said to have connected strategic Hamas facilities underground. The information could not initially be independently verified.

Hamas authority: Hundreds killed in new attacks

A spokesperson for the Hamas authority announced that more than 700 people had been killed in attacks throughout the Gaza Strip within 24 hours. The figures cannot be independently verified at present.

The spokesman reported numerous bodies under rubble. There are also great difficulties in rescuing the injured and transporting them to hospitals. No place in the Gaza Strip is currently safe. An Israeli army spokesman had called in Arabic on the inhabitants of certain residential areas in the south of the Gaza Strip to leave them and flee to other designated areas.

In the south, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have fled from the north are trying to avoid the shelling. According to the UN, people are living in cramped conditions. According to UN estimates, around 1.8 of the more than 2.2 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip have had to leave their homes because of the war.

Unicef: Attacks in Gaza "immoral" and "certainly illegal"

During a visit to the south of the Gaza Strip, the spokesperson for the UN Children's Fund, Unicef, James Elder, sharply criticized the Israeli attacks. A "bloodbath" was taking place there that was "immoral" and would "certainly be understood as illegal", Elder told the news channel Al-Jazeera. Anyone who accepts this is guilty themselves. "Silence is complicity," said the visibly shaken Elder.

During his visit, he had seen children everywhere with severe burns, injuries from shrapnel, brain injuries and broken bones. Elder described the latest information about so-called "safe zones" for the population in Gaza as a "misrepresentation". People were being "moved to tiny patches of land", where there was only sand, no water, no sanitary facilities and no protection from the weather.

USA urges protection of civilians

US Vice President Kamala Harris issued a clear warning to Israel on Saturday. "Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the level of civilian suffering and the images and videos from Gaza are devastating," she said in Dubai. In a conversation with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Harris also reiterated that the US will "under no circumstances allow the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, the siege of Gaza, or the redrawing of borders".

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin appealed to Israel's "moral responsibility" to protect civilians. "If you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat. That is why I have repeatedly made it clear to the Israeli leadership that protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral responsibility and a strategic imperative." Both Harris and Austin made it clear that there must be a political perspective of a separate state alongside Israel for the Palestinians.

Israeli government advisor Mark Regev rejected accusations that his country was doing too little to protect the civilian population in Gaza. "We are making maximum efforts, perhaps even unprecedented in similar circumstances," Regev told the BBC. The blame for civilian deaths also lies with Hamas because it hides military infrastructure in residential areas.

The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel's history, carried out by terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other extremist groups on October 7 in Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip. More than 1200 people were killed on the Israeli side and around 240 hostages were taken to Gaza. Israel responded with massive air strikes, a blockade of the coastal area and began a ground offensive at the end of October.

According to the Hamas health authority, well over 15,000 people have already been killed in the attacks, including many civilians. The information cannot currently be independently verified, but the United Nations and other observers point out that the authority's figures have proven to be credible in the past.

Hamas: release of hostages only after a permanent ceasefire

According to one of its leaders, Saleh al-Aruri, Hamas will not release hostages until Israel ends its "aggression" and a permanent ceasefire is in place. Among the remaining hostages were only men who had served in the army and soldiers. Israeli Defense Minister Joav Galant, however, said that there were still 15 women and two children among the hostages held by Hamas. Last week, Israel and Hamas released 105 hostages, including 14 Germans, and exchanged 240 Palestinian prisoners.

More foreigners and dual nationals leave Gaza

Foreigners and Palestinians with a second passport are continuing to leave the Gaza Strip. More than 600 of them - including Germans - were supposed to cross the Rafah border crossing and enter Egypt, according to a list from the border authority on the Palestinian side. Since the end of the ceasefire on Friday, the border crossing has been opened to almost 900 foreigners and dual nationals, according to the UN emergency aid office OCHA. In addition, 13 injured people have left the Gaza Strip.