Fierce combat rages in Khan Yunis; US,UK attack Houthi targets in Yemen
\nGAZA
\nThe Israeli army said Tuesday that 24 soldiers had been killed in Gaza the day before, the biggest single-day toll since the start of its ground operation on October 27.
\nMost of the soldiers were killed when rocket-propelled grenade fire hit a tank and a building they were trying to blow up, military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised statement.
\nHagari said several of the troops killed were reservists.
\n\u201cWe worked to find the victims until the last hours,\u201d Hagari said, indicating the difficulty in extracting bodies buried under the rubble. \u201cOur reservists sacrificed what was dearest to them so that we could all live here in complete safety,\u201d he said.
\nIsrael invaded Gaza after Palestinian resistance group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 as retaliation for decades of oppression and killed around 1,100 Israeli settlers, as per Tel Aviv\u2019s twice revised estimates.
\nIsrael\u2019s blistering retaliatory offensive against Hamas in Gaza has killed 25,295 people, most of them women, children and adolescents, according to the health ministry.
\nCombat raged in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday, against a backdrop of negotiations aimed at bringing about a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas in the absence of a long-term peace plan.
\nThe Palestine Red Crescent Society said early Tuesday that Israeli forces had targeted its headquarters in Khan Yunis \u201cwith artillery shelling on the fourth floor, coinciding with intense gunfire from Israeli drones, resulting in injuries among internally displaced individuals who sought safety on our premises\u201d.
\nThe UN humanitarian agency OCHA reported that \u201cground operations, fighting and attacks intensified\u201d over the preceding day around the main southern city, with the Israeli army saying its forces had conducted multiple raids and taken control of Hamas command centres there.
\nThe fierce fighting came as a White House official was due in the region for talks aimed at securing more captive releases, and as US media reported a new Israeli proposal for a deal that would involve a two-month pause in fighting.
\nUN agencies and aid groups have sounded the alarm about the growing threat of disease and famine in Gaza, where 1.7 million people are estimated to have been displaced from their homes.
\nAbu Iyad, his belongings piled on a donkey-drawn cart, told AFP on Monday that he was moving for the seventh time, fleeing Khan Yunis for Rafah on the Egyptian border, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have settled, many in makeshift tents.
\n\u201cI\u2019m heading to the unknown,\u201d he said. \u201cThey told us to go to Rafah — where to go in Rafah? Is there any space left?\u201d
\nRelatives of the captives stormed a parliamentary committee meeting on Monday demanding urgent action.
\n\u201cYou sit here while our children are dying over there,\u201d yelled Gilad Korngold, father of hostage Tal Shoham, an AFP correspondent reported.
\nUS news outlet Axios reported on Monday night that Israel had proposed to Hamas, via Qatari and Egyptian mediators, a new deal to free all the captives. The report, citing unnamed Israeli officials, said the proposed deal would be carried out in multiple stages, and would also involve the release of an undetermined number of Palestinian prisoners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fierce combat rages in Khan Yunis; US,UK attack Houthi targets in Yemen GAZA The Israeli army said Tuesday that 24 soldiers had been killed in Gaza the day before, the biggest single-day toll since the start of its ground operation on October 27. Most of the soldiers were killed when rocket-propelled grenade fire hit a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382680,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-382663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n