Israel strikes near Gaza City in 2nd ground raid

Israeli forces backed by fighter jets and drones carried out a second ground raid into Gaza in as many days and struck targets on the outskirts of Gaza City, the military said Friday, as it prepares for a widely expected ground invasion of the Hamas-ruled territory.

The Israeli military said ground forces raided inside Gaza, striking dozens of militant targets over the past 24 hours. It said aircraft and artillery bombed targets in Shijaiyah, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Gaza City.

The military said the soldiers exited the territory without suffering any casualties.

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesperson, said the raids enable forces to "uncover the enemy," to kill militants and to remove explosives and launch pads. The aim is "to prepare the ground for the next stages of the war," he added.

The next stage is a ground offensive that "will take a long time," Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told a small group of foreign reporters on Friday. Gallant said the ground invasion would include large forces, backed by airstrikes, and that it would be followed by a third phase of lower-intensity fighting, as Israel destroys "pockets of resistance."

The Palestinian death toll has soared past 7,300 as Israel has carried out waves of devastating airstrikes in response to the Hamas attack. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which tracks the toll, released a detailed list of names and ID numbers on Thursday, to counter suggestions by U.S. President Joe Biden and others that it was inflating casualty figures.

The airstrikes have flattened entire neighbourhoods, causing a level of death and destruction unseen in the last four wars between Israel and Hamas. More than a million people have fled their homes, with many heeding Israeli orders to evacuate to the south, despite continuing Israeli strikes across the sealed-off territory.

More than 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians, were slain during the initial Hamas attack, including several Canadians. Hamas is holding at least 229 captives inside Gaza, according to Israel, including men, women, children and older adults.

Palestinian militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel since the war began.

Elsewhere, Egyptian state media reported that six people were wounded when a rocket slammed into a medical building in the town of Taba, on the border with Israel. It was not immediately known who fired the projectile.

Israel's Hagari said "an aerial threat was identified in the area of the Red Sea," which appeared to be the source of the blast in Egypt. He said fighter jets were dispatched to the area and that Israel, Egypt and the U.S. were tightening their defences in the region.

Israel also said it killed a commander for the military wing of the militant Islamic Jihad group in an overnight raid in West Bank. Israeli forces said they responded with live fire when assailants hurled explosive devices and shot at troops.

Four Palestinians died in the raids, West Bank officials said.

As the plight of Palestinian civilians grows more desperate, the issue of humanitarian pauses or ceasefire agreements in the Hamas-run coastal enclave will come before the 193-member UN General Assembly on Friday in a draft resolution submitted by Arab states calling for a ceasefire.