GAZA STRIP
\nHeavy battles and bombardment hit Gaza City\u2019s Shujaiya district for a fourth day on Sunday, months after Israel declared Hamas\u2019s command structure dismantled in the northern area.
\nTens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighbourhood, where the army said it has fought Palestinian fighters both \u201cabove and below ground\u201d in tunnels.
\nMonths of on-and-off talks towards a Gaza truce and hostage release deal have meanwhile made little progress, with Hamas saying there was \u201cnothing new\u201d in a revised plan presented by US mediators.
\nThe Israeli military said ground and air forces had carried out raids on compounds used by fighters and \u201celiminated several terrorists\u201d over the past 24 hours. It also reported clashes in central Gaza and the southern Rafah area, a week after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that the \u201cintense phase\u201d of the offensive that started on October 7 was nearing an end.
\nThe United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that \u201c60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced\u201d from Shujaiya since new fighting broke out there on Thursday and the army issued evacuation orders.
\nFor those who remain, \u201cour lives have become hell\u201d, said 50-year-old Shujaiya resident Siham al-Shawa. She said people were trapped as strikes could happen \u201canywhere\u201d and \u201cit is difficult to get out of the neighbourhood under fire\u201d.
\n\u201cWe do not know where to go to protect ourselves.\u201d Netanyahu said Israeli \u201cforces are operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, everywhere in the Gaza Strip\u201d.
\nAccording to a statement from Netanyahu\u2019s office, he told his cabinet that \u201cdozens of terrorists are being eliminated every day.\u201d
\n\u2018Everything is rubble\u2019
\nSix people were killed in an air strike at dawn targeting a house in Rafah, said medics at Nasser Hospital where the bodies were taken. Artillery shelling also rocked parts of the city, witnesses said.
\nThe Israeli military launched a ground operation in Rafah in early May, leading to the closure of a key aid crossing.
\nThe United Nations and other relief agencies have voiced alarm over the dire humanitarian crisis and the threat of starvation the Israeli siege has brought for Gaza\u2019s 2.4 million people.
\n\u201cEverything is rubble,\u201d said Louise Wateridge from UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, speaking from the city of Khan Yunis. \u201cThere\u2019s no water there, there\u2019s no sanitation, there\u2019s no food. And now, people are living back in these buildings that are empty shells.\u201d
\nIn Israel, thousands of protesters again took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Saturday, demanding greater efforts to return the remaining prisoners, and calling for early elections.
\n\u2018Obliterating war\u2019
\nAbout a month after US President Joe Biden outlined a truce plan, Washington last week presented \u201cnew language\u201d for parts of the proposed deal, according to US news site Axios.
\nA Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan, confirmed that the movement had received the latest proposal but said it presented \u201cno real progress in the negotiations\u201d.
\nHamdan labelled the proposals \u201ca waste of time\u201d that aimed to give Israel \u201cadditional time [\u2026] to practice genocide\u201d.
\nHamas has called for a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, demands repeatedly rejected by Israel. Netanyahu on Sunday said, \u201cHamas is the only obstacle to the release of our hostages\u201d.
\nWith military and diplomatic \u201cpressure [\u2026] we will return them all\u201d, he said. The Gaza conflict has also led to soaring tensions on Israel\u2019s northern border with Lebanon, where the army has traded cross-border fire with the Hezbollah movement, an Iran-backed Hamas ally. Threats of a full-blown conflagration have escalated this month.
\nIran\u2019s mission to the UN, on social media, said it \u201cdeems as psychological warfare\u201d Israeli \u201cpropaganda about intending to attack Lebanon\u201d.
\nIt also warned its arch-foe that, \u201cshould it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue\u201d that could draw in more Tehran-aligned armed groups in the region.
\nHezbollah on Sunday claimed several attacks on Israeli military positions, and Lebanese official media reported Israeli strikes in the border area. The movement announced three deaths among its ranks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
GAZA STRIP Heavy battles and bombardment hit Gaza City\u2019s Shujaiya district for a fourth day on Sunday, months after Israel declared Hamas\u2019s command structure dismantled in the northern area. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled the devastated neighbourhood, where the army said it has fought Palestinian fighters both \u201cabove and below ground\u201d in tunnels. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":415872,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-415851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n