Gaza fighting rages ahead of $1-B U.S. arms delivery
Israeli forces back in areas supposedly cleared of Hamas terrorists
Daily TribuneIsraeli forces back in areas supposedly cleared of Hamas terrorists
The Israeli army has shifted its focus from Gaza's devastated north to the southern cities of Khan Yunis.
AFP
Israeli troops fought Hamas terrorists in multiple battles across the Gaza Strip Tuesday as the United States (US) readies the delivery of $1 billion worth of arms to its ally.
Fighting has flared in north Gaza four months after Israel’s army said Hamas’s command structure there had been dismantled, and six months after Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had “lost control” of the Palestinian territory.
Battles and heavy Israeli bombardments have been reported around Rafah as well as in Gaza City and Jabalia refugee camp in the north, and Nuseirat camp in the center.
More than seven months into the war, another 82 people were killed in Gaza over the past 24 hours, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.
That is the highest daily toll reported by the ministry in more than two weeks.
Nearly 450,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Rafah since 6 May, and around 100,000 from northern Gaza, UN agencies said.
That means around a quarter of Gaza’s population of 2.4 million people have been displaced again in about one week.
In Washington, US President Joe Biden’s administration notified the weapons package for Israel to Congress, which will need to approve it, a US official said.
The weapons would come out of a major $95-billion package recently approved by Congress in defense support for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and the Biden administration has repeatedly said it planned to go ahead and appropriate the funds through purchases from US manufacturers.
The move comes a week after Biden warned he may withhold bombs and artillery shells to Israel if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went ahead in defiance of US warnings with an assault on Rafah, the southern Gaza city where more than one million Palestinians have taken shelter after half a year of war.
The Biden administration also confirmed last week that for the first time it had halted a shipment including 2,000-pound bombs, fearing they would be used with devastating risks for civilians in Rafah.
