By emma Emeozor with agency reports
Israel pounded hundreds of targets in Gaza from the air yesterday while its soldiers also fought Hamas militants during raids into the besieged Palestinian enclave and Occupied West Bank where deaths are soaring and civilians are trapped in harrowing conditions.
In another development, Israel has set up hundreds of volunteer security squads in the two weeks since the Gaza war erupted and is arming them should there be knock-on Jewish-Arab unrest, authorities said, despite what police said was “exemplary” conduct so far.
Israeli police have arrested dozens of Arab citizens on suspicion of incitement and support for Hamas, based on social media posts. Some lawyers for those arrested have described the measures as unlawful and designed to stifle dissent at the war.
At least 5,087 Palestinians have been killed in two weeks of strikes, including 2,055 children, the health ministry said. In Gaza, the health ministry said 436 people had been killed in bombardments over the past 24 hours, most of them in the south of the narrow, densely populated territory.
The Israeli military said it had struck more than 320 targets in Gaza, including a tunnel housing Hamas fighters, dozens of command and lookout posts, and mortar and anti-tank missile launcher positions.
With the territory’s 2.3 million people running short of basics, European leaders looked set to follow the United Nations and Arab nations in calling for a “humanitarian pause” in hostilities so aid could reach them.
At press time, Israeli troops and tanks were massed on the Israeli-Gaza border. How soon they may launch a much-publicised invasion aimed at eliminating Hamas was not unclear.
Both Israel and Hamas reported overnight clashes in Gaza. Israel said ground forces mounted limited raids to fight Palestinian gunmen and that air strikes focused on sites where Hamas was assembling to ambush any wider Israeli invasion.
“These raids are raids that kill squads of terrorists who are preparing for our next stage in the war. These are raids that go deep,” military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said, adding that the operations also sought information on the 222 hostages held by Hamas.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, said its fighters engaged with an Israeli force that infiltrated southern Gaza, destroying two bulldozers and a tank and forcing the raiders to withdraw. Israel made no comment on the incident.
Meanwhile, the conflict is escalating beyond Gaza. Early yesterday, Israeli warplanes also struck two Hezbollah cells in Lebanon that were planning to launch missiles and rockets toward Israel, the Israeli military said.
The Israeli army and Palestinians also clashed in the occupied West Bank. And Hamas fired more rockets into Israel. Israel also hit a Hezbollah compound and an observation post.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, two Palestinians were killed at the Jalazone refugee camp near Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said. Residents told Reuters that Israeli forces raided the camp and made many arrests as they clashed with gunmen and some youths who threw stones. The Israeli military said 15 suspects were apprehended, ten of them Hamas operatives.
“Suspects hurled explosive devices and stone blocks from roofs at Israeli security forces, who responded with live fire. Hits were identified,” it said in a statement.
The U.N. said desperate Gazans lacked food, water, medicines and places to shelter from the unrelenting pounding that has flattened swathes of the Hamas-ruled enclave. Some aid was trickling over one border crossing into Gaza, but only a small fraction of the amount needed.
In Brussels, European Union leaders meeting later this week will call for a ceasefire to allow aid to flow safely, according to draft conclusions seen by Reuters. They said they backed a similar call from U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who visited Rafah last week.
Arab nations also want a truce. EU officials said the text could still change before the summit. Some countries have expressed reservations about calling for a ceasefire as it could be seen as limiting Israel’s right to self-defence.
The Al-Qassam Brigades also said they were firing missiles at the southern Israeli towns of Ashkelon and Mavki’im. Warning sirens blared out on the Israeli side. The Israeli military, the Middle East’s most powerful, faces a group that has built up a large arsenal with Iran’s help, fighting in a crowded urban setting and using a vast tunnel network.
On fear of Jewish-Arab unrest, Israeli police chief, Inspector-General Kobi Shabtai, said such monitoring enabled officers to preempt any eruptions of violence. “There has been exemplary conduct here,” he told a parliamentary review panel, “and almost zero incidents, with all those pinpoint events being dealt with at the local level and with less media resonance.
“There is dialogue with the (Arab) leadership and in parallel we are poised and ready for any scenario.”
Minister for police Itamar Ben-Gvir has predicted that this war could see a repeat of the 2021 unrest and has ordered an easing of regulations for issuing gun licenses to private citizens. These generally require applicants to have served in the Israeli military, from which most Arabs are exempt.
An additional measure has been the setting up of volunteer security squads to patrol the streets and back up police. Shabtai said 527 such squads have been created since October 7.
The deputy director-minister of Ben-Gvir’s ministry, Eliezer Rosenbaum, told lawmakers that 20,000 firearms had been ordered for distribution to such squads, with another 20,000 to follow. He said volunteers would also be issued with flak jackets and helmets.
He did not elaborate on the kind of gun involved. Ben-Gvir has posted an online video of himself handing out M-16 or M-4 assault rifles. Naella Gelkopf-Belais, a social activist from the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Haifa, said police should work with civic authorities and be wary of “the creation of private militias.
“We in the city are on a tinderbox,” she said. Shabtai said security squads would be subordinate to police. “It is good that there will be a lot of security squads and force, but caution must be exercised with this,” he said. “What is permitted and what is forbidden must be understood, and care must be taken that no finger is too light on the trigger.”
