Israeli forces pounded targets in the northern Gaza Strip town of Jabalia on Saturday, killing at least 33 people and injuring dozens of others in the bombardment, a Palestinian emergency services group said.
Israel has surrounded Jabalia for a week as it seeks to root out Hamas fighters who it says have reorganized in the area. Since Friday, approximately 20,000 Palestinians have fled the neighborhood, according to UNRWA, the main United Nations agency aiding Palestinians in Gaza, amid Israel’s bombardment. Paltel, the largest telecommunications provider in Gaza, said that internet service was completely down in northern Gaza.
Fighting also escalated in Lebanon on Saturday as the Israeli military targeted several areas outside of Beirut in airstrikes that covered the area in clouds of dust. The resurgence in attacks, after several days of relative calm, came after Hezbollah warned of “a new and escalating phase” in the conflict with Israel.
In Gaza, the Gaza Health Ministry reported that Israeli forces had targeted the entrance of the laboratory at Kamal Adwan Hospital, a major facility near Jabalia, killing one person and injuring several others.
Israeli forces were also operating near the Indonesian Hospital, a medical center that was financed by charities from Indonesia and lies on Jabalia’s northern outskirts. Israeli troops fired gunshots and artillery in the direction of the hospital, the Health Ministry said, adding that more than 40 patients remained at the facility.
The fighting has raged on in Gaza and Lebanon in the days since Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader, was killed in a firefight with Israeli troops in southern Gaza. Despite hopes that Sinwar’s death could be a pivot to negotiations that would end the yearlong war, there were no indications that peace talks were imminent, and over the weekend, the violence appeared only to intensify.
The fighting between Israel and the Iran-backed militia Hezbollah continued over the weekend, with a drone fired Saturday from the militant group’s base in Lebanon, striking a building near Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s private residence, his office said.
Neither Netanyahu nor his wife were home at the time of the strike, according to the prime minister’s office, which said that there had been no injuries.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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