Israel bombards Gaza, strikes targets in Lebanon
CBC
Israel bombarded Gaza with more airstrikes on Monday as its soldiers fought Hamas militants on the ground in raids within the besieged Palestinian enclave.
In signs that the conflict was spreading, Israeli aircraft also struck southern Lebanon overnight and Israeli troops fought Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, residents said.
The United Nations said desperate civilians were running out of food, water and places to shelter from the unrelenting aerial pounding that has flattened swathes of Hamas-ruled Gaza.
Both Israel and Hamas reported overnight clashes in Gaza.
Israel said ground forces mounted limited raids to fight Palestinian gunmen and that airstrikes were being focussed on sites where Hamas was assembling to attack any wider Israeli invasion.
"During the night there were raids by tank and infantry forces. These raids are raids that kill squads of terrorists who are preparing for our next stage in the war. These are raids that go deep," chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a briefing.
The raids also tried to gather information on the over 200 hostages being held by Hamas, he said.
Health authorities in Gaza said at least 5,087 people have been killed and over 15,200 injured in Israel's two-week bombardment that began after a Hamas Oct. 7 rampage on southern Israeli communities in which 1,400 people were killed, including several Canadians, and 212 were taken into Gaza as hostages.
The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said about 1.4 million of Gaza's 2.3 million population were now internally displaced, with many seeking refuge in overcrowded UN emergency shelters.
Israel has ordered Gaza residents to evacuate the north. But the OCHA said it believed hundreds and possibly thousands of people who had fled were now returning to the north due to bombardments in the south and lack of shelter.
A third convoy of aid trucks entered the Rafah crossing from Egypt on Monday bound for the besieged Gaza Strip, an aid worker and two security sources said.
Deliveries of aid through Rafah began on Saturday after wrangling over procedures for inspecting the aid and bombardments on the Gaza side of the border had left relief materials stranded in Egypt. On Saturday and Sunday 34 trucks passed through.
The UN humanitarian office said the volume of aid entering so far was just four per cent of the daily average before the hostilities and a fraction of what was needed with food, water, medicines and fuel stocks running out.
The aid shipments did not include fuel.
