Israeli forces press ground offensive in Gaza
• Hamas confirms death of political bureau member
• Displaced resident says ‘there is no food in Gaza’
• Enclave already out of humanitarian aid, power
• Pope urges immediate resumption of talks
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military pressed ground operations across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, urging Palestinians to flee an offensive in Rafah city nearly a week into a renewed assault on the territory.
The Israeli troops are again deploying to parts of Gaza and conducting attacks despite calls by several countries, including Germany, UK and France, to revive a January truce.
In a statement on X on Sunday, military spokesman Avichay Adraee said the army launched an offensive to strike what he alleged terrorist organisations in a district of the southern city of Rafah.
In a message that appeared on leaflets dropped over the area by drone, Adraee called on Palestinians to leave the “dangerous combat zone” in Tal al-Sultan district and move further north.
At a charity kitchen in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city just north of Rafah, 19-year-old Iman al-Bardawil said many displaced Palestinians like her struggle to “afford food and drink”.
“We are in the month of Ramazan, which is a blessed month, and people…find themselves obliged to come here,” Bardawil told AFP, lamenting “the suffering” she saw around her.
“I’m here to get rice for the children, but it’s gone,” said Saed Abu al-Jidyan, who like Bardawil had fled his home in northern Gaza.
“The crossings are closed, and my salary has been suspended since the beginning of the war… there is no food in Gaza.”
Before its renewed assault, Israel in early March blocked the entry of humanitarian aid into war-ravaged Gaza and cut electricity supplies, in a bid to force Hamas to accept the Israeli terms for an extension of the ceasefire and release the 58 prisoners.
The electricity supplied by Israel had fed Gaza’s main water desalination plant, and the decision to cut power has aggravated already dire conditions for Gaza’s 2.4 million people.
The Israeli military said troops were also operating in northern Gaza and working “to expand the security zone” there.
Hamas has said that Israel is sacrificing the prisoners with its resumption of bombardments, while many of the families of the prisoners have called for a renewed ceasefire.
Hamas official killed
The military said its fighter jets struck what it alleged several Hamas targets in northern Gaza on Sunday.
An Israeli air strike on Saturday on a displacement camp in al-Mawasi near Khan Yunis killed senior Hamas political official Salah al-Bardawil and his wife, according the Palestinian Islamist movement.
Murad al-Najjar, who lives in the area, said he “heard a very loud explosion. Our tents were destroyed… And we saw that a man and his wife were martyred.”
Bardawil, 65, is the third member of the political bureau to be killed since Israel resumed air strikes on Tuesday, after Yasser Harb and Essam al-Dalis, the head of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.
Bardawil, born in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, joined Hamas when it was founded in 1987, serving as a spokesman before rising through the ranks and being elected to the political bureau in 2021.
He spoke against security cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, and supported armed struggle against Israel.
In the flare-up since last week, Hamas has also announced the deaths of interior ministry head Mahmud Abu Watfa, and Bahjat Abu Sultan, the director general of the Internal Security Services.
Hamas sources said on Sunday that Mohammed Hassan al-Amur, the bodyguard of slain leader Yahya Sinwar, was killed in an overnight strike on his home in Khan Yunis.
The head of Hamas’s political wing, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in Tehran on July 31, 2024, in an explosion claimed by Israel. His successor Sinwar died on Oct 16 in Gaza.
Pope seeks end to Israeli strikes
Pope Francis called on Sunday for an immediate end to the Israeli strikes and for the resumption of dialogue for the release of prisoners and secure a “definitive ceasefire”.
According to the Gaza health ministry, at least 637 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli assault since Tuesday.
Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2025