Israel is expanding its offensive in northern Gaza with a new ground operation and says civilians will not be allowed to return

The Israeli military announced an expansion of its month-long compound on Thursday Operation in the northern Gaza Strip This also includes part of Beit Lahiya, a city that has been heavily bombed since the first days of the war and where Israel says Hamas fighters have regrouped.

The military said in a statement that “troops began deploying” in the Beit Lahiya area after intelligence indicated the presence of militants there. Hamas has repeatedly regrouped in areas where the military has already carried out major operations.

The northwest Gaza city was among the first targets of the ground invasion launched more than a year ago after Hamas attacked southern Israel. The northern third of the territory has since been surrounded by Israeli forces.

In early October, Israel launched another major offensive in nearby Jabaliya, a decades-old urban refugee camp. It has sharply restricted the amount of aid entering the northern Gaza Strip and ordered a complete evacuation. Tens of thousands have fled to nearby Gaza City in the war's latest mass displacement.

The Israel-Hamas war The attack began after Palestinian militants stormed Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapping 250 others. According to Palestinian health authorities, the Israeli military response in the Gaza Strip has killed more than 43,000 people. They do not distinguish between civilians and combatants but say more than half of those killed were women and children.

Palestinian medical sources told the Al Jazeera network that on Thursday alone in the north of the Gaza Strip, in the wake of increasing Israeli operations in Beit Lahiya, about 20 people were killed, including five people killed in a raid on a house in the city and five others were injured.

Israel Defense Forces said on Thursday that it would continue to “facilitate the safe evacuation of Palestinians from combat zones in the northern Gaza Strip through organized routes for their safety” after an IDF commander said the military was working to evacuate all civilians from the north of the Gaza Strip to expel the Gaza Strip from war-torn Palestinian territory indefinitely.

Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, who commands the 162nd IDF Division operating in Gaza, told reporters on Tuesday evening that there was no intention to admit residents of the northern Gaza Strip as troops had been forced twice to enter some areas, including the Jabaliya camp “To enter Gaza, to return to their homes.”

He said humanitarian assistance – which the Biden administration has demanded that Israel increase the river in Gaza – were allowed to enter the south of the enclave “regularly” but not the north because, as he said, “there were no civilians left there.”

However, according to a United Nations estimate, “between 75,000 and 95,000 people were estimated to be in northern Gaza” as of Monday.

The United Nations Humanitarian Aid Agency (OCHA) said about 100,000 people had been forced to flee the region since Israel's offensive in northern Gaza and “the death toll in North Gaza Governorate over the past month is estimated to be in the hundreds, possibly over 1,000.” .” .”

The UN agency said in July that 1.9 million Gazans had been forcibly displaced from their homes.

“In other words, approximately nine out of 10 people in Gaza are currently estimated to be internally displaced, many of them multiple times,” the U.N. humanitarian agency said.

This number is likely to have increased since then, given Israel's ongoing military operations and routine evacuation orders.

There are no signs of easing in Israel's parallel war with Hezbollah

Several large Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut's southern suburbs early Thursday, including one on a site next to Lebanon's only international airport. The Israeli military had issued an evacuation notice for the site, saying there were Hezbollah facilities there, without providing further details.

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a speech broadcast on Wednesday that the Lebanese militant group would only be open to ceasefire negotiations if “the enemy stops its aggression.” His speech marked the 40-day period of mourning since the former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was murdered in Beirut.

Hezbollah began firing on Israel on October 8, 2023 in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Both groups are considered proxy forces backed by Iran, which insisted on Thursday that its “Axis of Resistance” against Israel remained robust despite Israel's killing of many senior commanders. More than 3,000 people have been killed and about 13,600 injured since the conflict began in Lebanon, according to the country's Health Ministry.

Lebanon's state news agency said an Israeli drone strike hit a car at an army checkpoint in the southern port city of Sidon, killing three people and wounding several others UN peacekeepers stationed in southern Lebanon. The National News Agency said one of the wounded was taken to hospital while peacekeepers were treated for minor injuries at the scene of the attack at the northern entrance to Sidon, Lebanon's third-largest city. There was initially no information about the identity of the deceased.

The U.N. peacekeeper in the country, UNIFIL, said in a statement that a convoy “carrying newly arrived peacekeepers to southern Lebanon was passing through Saida when a drone strike occurred nearby,” slightly injuring five peacekeepers, reportedly from the Lebanese Red Cross paramedics were treated on site.

“They will maintain their posts,” UNFIL said of the troops in the convoy, adding: “We remind all actors of their obligation to avoid actions that endanger peacekeepers or civilians. Differences should be resolved at the negotiating table and not through violence.”

A drone strike struck a car on a main road outside Beirut early Thursday, killing a woman, according to local media.