Israel is carrying out limited raids in Hamas-ruled Gaza before an expected invasion, but soaring civilian deaths and the fate of hostages are complicating the picture.
Tel Aviv — Israeli forces conducted a ground raid into Gaza for the second consecutive night, the country’s military said Friday. The small raid was backed by fighter jets and drones, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) saying it had struck dozens of targets on the outskirts of Gaza City. The IDF said the small incursion had resulted in no Israeli casualties.
The previous ground raid, early Thursday morning, lasted a few hours, struck rocket launching positions and involved battles with militants, according to the IDF. Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday that the ground raids were intended to “uncover the enemy” and destroy launch pads and explosives to “prepare the ground for the next stages of the war.”
The Gaza Strip’s Hamas rulers, along with other Palestinian militants, opened their bloody with a salvo of thousands of rockets, and they have continued firing them from the enclave for the nearly three weeks since.
Most of Hamas’ rockets are intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome defense system, but at least one got through Friday and hit Tel Aviv, causing “significant destruction,” according to the civilian emergency response agency United Hatzalah, which said three people were lightly wounded.
Israel has responded to the unprecedented terror attack and ongoing rocket fire — which it says has killed more than 1,400 people and left Hamas holding almost 230 hostages — with an overwhelming barrage of artillery and airstrikes on Gaza.
Health officials in the densely populated, Hamas-controlled strip of land say more than 7,000 people have been killed. The Israeli military disputes that figure, but entire neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble, sometimes crushing entire families under the ruins of residential buildings. Civilian deaths mount in Gaza
Raw, overwhelming grief is everywhere in Gaza.
“What did he do?” cried one man as he rocked the body of his son, just two and a half months old, in his arms. He lost his wife and four children in an Israeli strike Wednesday on a house in the Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza. “Did he kill anyone? Did he kidnap someone? There were just innocent children inside this house.
