Israeli troops battle Hamas terrorists in southern Gaza

The war zone in Gaza Strip expanded from the north to the south where Israeli forces and Hamas terrorists battled on Tuesday as the former warned Palestinian civilians through dropped leaflets to flee to other areas.

Israeli tanks, armored personnel carriers and bulldozers were seen on Monday near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis, which is packed with civilians who fled their homes further north in the territory earlier in the war, witnesses told Agence France-Presse.

Israel's army said Monday it was taking "aggressive" action against "Hamas and other terrorist organizations" in Khan Yunis, warning that the main road in the north and east of the city "constitutes a battlefield."

An Agence France-Presse journalist in Rafah near Gaza's border with Egypt saw smoke rising late Monday from buildings in southern Gaza after Israeli bombardment.

Hamas claimed via Telegram its militants had targeted two personnel carriers and a tank near Khan Yunis.

Its military branch also said it had fired rockets towards Beersheba in southern Israel on Tuesday, while the Israeli military said rocket warning sirens sounded there.

In the city of Rafah near the Egyptian border, resident Abu Jahar al-Hajj said an air strike near his home felt "like an earthquake."

"Pieces of concrete started falling on us," he said.

Three more Israeli soldiers were killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip, the army said on Tuesday, raising the number of troop deaths there to 78.

"Nowhere is safe in Gaza and there is nowhere left to go," said Lynn Hastings, United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories.

"We have asked civilians to evacuate the battlefield and we have provided a designated humanitarian zone inside the Gaza Strip," Israeli military spokesperson Jonathan Conricus said.

Civilian tracker

Speaking on condition of anonymity, senior Israeli military officials admitted that around two civilians have been killed for every dead Hamas fighter in the Gaza Strip.

"Hopefully it (the ratio) will be much lower" in the coming phase of the war, one of the officials added.

To that end, the officials said, the army is using high-tech mapping software to track population movements inside the Gaza Strip and issue evacuation orders.

The system incorporates mobile phone and other signals, aerial surveillance and word from local sources, as well as artificial intelligence, to maintain a constantly updating map showing population concentrations across the territory.

But the UN humanitarian office OCHA has questioned the usefulness of such a tool in an area where access to telecommunications and electricity is sporadic.

Mass rape-slays

Israeli police have been exploring evidence of sexual violence against women during the 7 October attacks by Hamas terrorists of southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

A senior police officer recently told Israel's parliament that an inquiry had gathered more than 1,500 testimonies. Allegations include gang rape and post-mortem mutilation.

Senior Israel police officer Shelly Harush told lawmakers last week that investigators spoke of "girls stripped bare above the waist and below," and of a grisly witness account of the gang rape, mutilation and murder of a young woman.

Another witness she cited spoke of wounds to the "genitals, abdomen, legs and buttocks," with some having their "breasts cut off" or sustaining "gunshot wounds."

First responders described encountering bodies "with their hands cuffed behind their backs, a woman's corpse bleeding from the genital area."

Hamas rejected on Monday the accusations, calling them part of "Zionist campaigns which promote unfounded lies and allegations to demonise the Palestinian resistance."

The Islamist group dismissed claims by women and advocacy groups as part of "a series" of Israeli "lies" since the start of the war.