Israel bombed the Gaza Strip on a large scale in the early hours of Sunday (22) after announcing increased attacks ahead of a ground invasion, two weeks after the start of the war triggered by the Hamas terrorist group’s unprecedented offensive into its territory.

A man helps a woman out of a building after attacks in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip – Photo: KHATIB SAYS/AFP

As a result, the death toll has risen to 6,051, according to the latest estimates of the war in the Middle East.

The US government has announced that it will strengthen its military structure in the region to avoid large-scale conflict.

At least 80 people were killed in the enclave between Saturday morning and Sunday, according to Hamas, the terrorist group that rules the Gaza Strip.

The city of Rafah, located near the border with Egypt in the south, was one of the targets of the explosions, which also hit the Gaza Strip, according to AFP correspondents.

“Starting today, we will intensify our attacks on the Gaza Strip in order to reduce the risks to our forces in the next stages of the conflict,” Israeli army spokesman General Daniel Hagari said on Saturday.

Following the Hamas attack on October 7, Israel vowed to “destroy” the terrorist group.

“We are going to enter the Gaza Strip, we are going to carry out an operational task, to destroy the infrastructure of Hamas and terrorists, and we are going to do it with professionalism,” Herzi Halevi, commander of the Israeli General Staff, also said on Saturday. .

Israeli authorities said the Oct. 7 attack killed more than 1,400 people in the country, most of them civilians who were shot, burned alive or maimed by Hamas militants.

Israel’s retaliatory bombings have killed at least 4,385 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past two weeks, most of them civilians, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.

The Israeli army has massed tens of thousands of troops along the borders of a narrow area where 2.4 million Palestinians live.

A ground operation in the overcrowded enclave, full of traps and tunnels, against battle-hardened Hamas terrorists holding more than 200 Israeli and foreign hostages would undoubtedly be dangerous.

“Gaza is complex, densely populated, the enemy is preparing a lot, but we are also preparing for them,” General Halevi warned. “And we will be referring to photographs and images, as well as those who died two weeks ago,” he added.

Map of the war between Israel and Hamas – ART: R7

Family destroyed

Six kilometers from the border with the Gaza Strip, Kibbutz Beeri, where Hamas terrorists killed at least a hundred people, is preparing for another funeral.

“I’m not sure any of us will be able to process and understand what happened,” said Romy Gold, a 70-year-old former paratrooper who is preparing to attend the funerals of five members of the same family.

“We need guarantees that this will not happen again. And that’s not the feeling we have,” he added.

The Israeli army killed nearly 1,500 Hamas militants in a counteroffensive to regain control of attacked areas in the south of the country.

On October 15, Israel asked civilians in the northern Gaza Strip to travel south to seek refuge from the bombing.

“Catastrophic” situation in Gaza

Explosions also continue in the south of the Gaza Strip. Hamas terrorists said nine people were killed in an attack in Khan Younis on Saturday night.

At least 1.4 million Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes since the conflict began, and the humanitarian situation in the territory is “catastrophic,” according to the UN.

In response to an attack by the Hamas terrorist group earlier this month, the Gaza Strip has been subject to a “total blockade” since October 9, with no supplies of water, food or electricity.

On Saturday, the first convoy of humanitarian aid entered Palestinian territory through the Rafah checkpoint on the border with Egypt. The crossing, the only one not controlled by Israel, was closed again after 20 trucks entered it.

The UN estimates that meeting the needs of all Gazans will require at least one hundred trucks per day.

US reinforcements

Fighting has also reached the border between northern Israel and southern Lebanon, with repeated attacks between the Israeli army and the Hezbollah terrorist group, which is pro-Iran and allied with Hamas.

Hezbollah is “dragging Lebanon into a war from which it will gain nothing but from which it risks losing much,” warned Israel Defense Forces spokesman Jonathan Conricus.

Faced with “an escalation by Iran and its neighboring forces,” the US government announced the activation of several missile defense systems “across the region” and the preliminary mobilization of additional military resources.

Israel has ordered the evacuation of dozens of communities in the north of its territory. In Lebanon, thousands of people also fled from the border areas of the city of Tyre.

Since October 7, 90 people have been killed in attacks by the army or Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The Israel Defense Forces announced on Sunday that they had killed “terrorist agents” from the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad who were planning the attacks in an air strike on a mosque in the West Bank city of Jenin.

The Jenin Red Crescent said the attack killed one person and injured three others. The Palestinian Health Ministry said two men were killed in the attack.

Elsewhere in the West Bank, a Palestinian was killed in a military incursion in Nablus and another was killed in Tubas.

In addition, according to state media reports, as a result of Israeli bombing, Syria’s two main airports, in Damascus and Aleppo, were out of service.

*according to AFP