Israel’s military hit central Gaza with airstrikes as it announced the start of “targeted operational activity” in two areas Wednesday.
The military said it was attacking “terror targets, including military compounds, weapons storage facilities and underground infrastructure” in Deir al-Balah and Bureij.
Residents in the area reported heavy bombardment throughout the night.
The Israeli military also said it continued fighting in the southern city of Rafah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited part of northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, where Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters have been trading fire throughout the war in Gaza and raising concerns of an expanded regional conflict.
“Whoever thinks that they can harm us and we will sit idly by is making a big mistake. We are prepared for a very strong action in the north. In one way or another we will restore security to the north,” Netanyahu said.
U.S. President Joe Biden, increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct of its war against Hamas militants in Gaza and a mounting Palestinian death toll, said in an interview published Tuesday that there is “every reason” to believe Netanyahu has dragged out the conflict to save himself politically.
But when asked later Tuesday whether Netanyahu was playing politics with the war, Biden seemed to backtrack, telling reporters, “I don’t think so. He’s trying to work out a serious problem he has.”
Last week Biden announced an Israeli proposal for a Gaza cease-fire and pushed for global support of it. Hamas has yet to agree to it, and Netanyahu has been reserved in his comments about it, prompting Biden’s remark to Time magazine about Israel’s prime minister dragging out the war.
Netanyahu on Monday downplayed the immediate prospects for a cease-fire in the war with Hamas in Gaza, saying that a deal was a partial outline.
As the war nears the eight-month mark, the Israeli leader faces conflicting demands: Biden and other world leaders urge him to end the conflict, while right-wing lawmakers in the Israeli parliament say they will upend Netanyahu’s government if he agrees to a cease-fire without first erasing the last vestiges of Hamas control in Gaza.
Hamas said Tuesday it cannot agree to any deal unless Israel makes a “clear” commitment to a permanent cease-fire and a complete withdrawal of troops from Gaza. Netanyahu has often said Israeli forces will not leave Gaza without eliminating all Hamas elements from the territory.
Qatar, which alongside the United States and Egypt has been mediating Hamas-Israel talks in Cairo, has also urged Israel to provide a clear position on its intentions, one that has the backing of its entire government to reach a deal.
Biden acknowledged that he and Netanyahu have had tense relations as the death toll in Gaza has soared past the 36,500 mark — a figure that includes both civilians and combatants.
They are particularly at odds over whether a revitalized Palestinian Authority should govern Gaza after the war, which the United States favors, and Netanyahu rejects without offering a detailed plan of his own.
“My major disagreement with Netanyahu is, what happens after … Gaza’s over? What, what does it go back to? Do Israeli forces go back in?” Biden asked rhetorically.
“The answer is, if that’s the case, it can’t work,” he said.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Biden, in the Time interview, “was referencing what many critics have said” about Netanyahu’s actions, but that the U.S. will “let the prime minister speak to his own politics and to what his critics are saying.”
“For our part though, he and Prime Minister Netanyahu do not agree on everything, and he talked in that interview about some of the things they don’t agree on, such as on a two-state solution,” a newly formed Palestinian state living alongside Israel.
Hamas launched the October 7 terror attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people according to Israeli tallies, and taking roughly 250 hostages. About 120 of the hostages remain in Gaza, although the Israeli military says 37 of them are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory bombardments and ground offensive have killed at least 36,500 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
