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Smoke over Khan Yunis after an airstrike on March 21

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Said Khatib / AFP

Israel's armed forces say they have launched a new military operation in Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip. The operation in the west of the city began with "a series of air strikes on around 40 terrorist targets." The aim of the operation was to "continue to destroy terrorist infrastructure and eliminate terrorists in the area," the military said in a statement.

According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, Israeli troops have sealed off two hospitals in Khan Yunis. The aid organization said tanks had advanced into the area around the Al-Amal and Nasser hospitals. The clinic staff was exposed to heavy fire. A Palestinian Red Crescent employee was killed.

According to the Red Crescent, Israeli troops carried out extensive demolition work with bulldozers in the area around Al Amal Hospital. "All of our teams are currently in extreme danger and are completely unable to move," said the Red Crescent. The Israeli armed forces also allegedly demanded the complete evacuation of employees, patients and refugees from the clinic building. They fired smoke bombs at the area to drive away the people there.

Fighting continues at Shifa Hospital

Fighting also continues around the Shifa hospital in Gaza. The military reported that “around 480 terrorists with connections to the terrorist organizations Hamas and Islamic Jihad were arrested.” In addition, “weapons and terrorist infrastructure” were found in the largest clinic in the Palestinian territory. Since the operation began a week ago, the military says it has killed dozens of terrorists in the area of ​​the hospital. The information could not initially be independently verified.

Israel's army had already entered the Shifa hospital in mid-November. According to her own statements, she also found a Hamas tunnel complex there. According to the army, numerous terrorists later returned to the clinic. Israel accuses the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas, which rules in the Gaza Strip, of misusing hospitals as bases and weapons depots. Hamas and the hospital staff deny this.

Israel bombs 65 targets

The army said that within one day the air force had attacked 65 targets in the northern and central Gaza Strip. These include tunnels that were used for attacks and military facilities. A workshop for manufacturing drones was found in the central section of the coastal strip. There were fights with terrorists outside the building, and several of them were killed.

In the southern city of Rafah on the sealed Egyptian border, which has become the last refuge for about half of the roughly 2.3 million residents of the densely populated Gaza Strip, seven people were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a house, according to the Palestinian Health Authority.

No progress in ceasefire efforts

There has recently been no progress reported in Qatar and Egypt's efforts to mediate a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. The talks also include the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and access to aid supplies for the population in the Gaza Strip threatened by famine. As the AFP news agency learned from negotiating circles, the two intelligence chiefs of the CIA and Mossad traveled from Doha to inform their respective teams at home about the latest round of talks.

The negotiations therefore focused in particular “on details and the ratio for the exchange of hostages and prisoners.” The “technical teams” therefore remain in Doha.

Over 32,000 dead Palestinians, almost 600 dead Israeli soldiers

The health authority controlled by the Islamist Hamas said on Sunday that 32,226 Palestinians had been killed and more than 74,500 others injured in the Gaza Strip since the Gaza war began on October 7th. The numbers could not initially be independently verified.

An Israeli soldier was killed during an operation at Shifa Hospital in the northern city of Gaza, the army announced on Sunday. According to the military, 252 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip began at the end of October. Since October 7th, 596 soldiers have been killed and more than 3,100 others injured.

The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel's history, carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other extremist Palestinian organizations on October 7th in Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip. They murdered around 1,140 people and abducted 250 others to the coastal strip. Israel responded with massive air strikes and a ground offensive. In view of the high number of civilian casualties and the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip, Israel is increasingly criticized internationally.

mgo/AFP/dpa/Reuters