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Israeli air strike in the south of the Gaza Strip, here on Rafah, the last place before the Egyptian border

Photo: - / AFP

New targets - in the fourth month of the war: The Israeli military has expanded its offensive in the southern Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses reported on Monday violent clashes between Israeli soldiers and fighters from the radical Islamic Hamas in the west of Khan Yunis.

The fighting took place in the immediate vicinity of two hospitals and at tent cities for refugees from the north of the Gaza Strip.

The Palestinian Red Crescent spoke of dozens of deaths and injuries.

According to Israeli media reports, the military confirmed that it had made a major advance into an area in the west of Khan Yunis that it had not previously moved into.

The operation could take several days.

The aim is to render Khan Yunis's Hamas brigade incapable of fighting.

So far, 50 Hamas fighters, including a company commander, have been killed.

The army said three soldiers were killed on the Israeli side.

The army is aware that it is operating in an extremely densely populated area, it said.

At the same time, however, she is confronted with the fact that Hamas terrorists repeatedly attack her from hospitals, mosques and residential areas.

Khan Yunis is considered a Hamas stronghold.

Many of its leaders in the Gaza Strip, including Jihia al-Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, come from there.

As in the entire coastal area, Hamas also built an extensive tunnel system under Khan Yunis.

It is not officially known where Sinwar and the extended leadership are hiding.

According to the provider Paltel, telecommunications services are down again in the entire Gaza Strip.

It is the tenth telecommunications outage in the Gaza Strip since the war began last October.

The last and longest suspension of services to date ended last Friday and lasted eight days.

The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel's history, carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist groups in southern Israel on October 7th.

On the Israeli side, 1,200 people were killed.

Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground offensive.

According to the Hamas-controlled health authority, more than 25,000 people have been killed so far.

The information could not initially be independently verified.

Hamas and the majority of Israelis reject the two-state solution

Due to the high number of deaths among Palestinian civilians, international pressure is growing on the parties to the conflict, especially Israel.

In addition, after the USA, Germany and the EU are now also increasing the pressure on opponents of a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict.

However, it is questionable whether the increasing pressure can have an effect.

Because: A majority of Israelis now reject a two-state solution.

Many fear that this could result in rockets raining down on Israeli locations from the West Bank.

In addition, some argue that an independent state after the unprecedented massacre of October 7th would be a reward.

Hamas is also against a two-state solution.

It seeks the destruction of Israel.

EU diplomats fear that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is betting on Donald Trump's victory in the US presidential election in the fall.

The Republican strongly supported Netanyahu in his first term in office and announced, among other things, that the USA would no longer categorically view Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank as violating international law.

Trump's successor Biden has corrected this course again.

The Democrat instead calls on Israel to be open to a two-state solution.

dop/dpa