Israel bombs Gaza as US warns of wider war

Israel continued shelling the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “intense phase” of the war was coming to an end, while the United States urged its ally to avoid further escalation along the Lebanese border.

Israeli forces carried out further deadly attacks, killing 13 people in two schools and hitting a house in Gaza City, according to civil defense in the Hamas-controlled area.

In light of Israel’s plans to move some soldiers from Gaza to the Lebanese border, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged the country’s defense minister on Monday not to allow an escalation of violence.

Blinken “stressed the importance of avoiding further escalation of the conflict and reaching a diplomatic solution that allows both Israeli and Lebanese families to return to their homes,” spokesman Matthew Miller said after meeting with Defense Secretary Yoav Gallant in Washington.

Since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, there have been daily cross-border shelling between Israel and the Lebanese Hezbollah. In recent weeks, fears have grown that this war could develop into another major front.

Iran-backed Hezbollah said on Monday it had attacked three Israeli military bases across the border in recent fighting.

The Israeli military said its warplanes had hit militant infrastructure in the Baalbek region of eastern Lebanon.

Thousands of Lebanese and Israeli civilians from the border areas of their respective countries have been forced to seek refuge from the fighting in recent months.

“There must be a war to drive Hezbollah away from the border,” says Helene Abergel, a 49-year-old displaced person from the Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona.

– “Drag Israel to destruction” –

In the Gaza Strip, Israeli attacks have destroyed large parts of the infrastructure and residents are fighting for survival.

Netanyahu said the military would soon end the “intensive phase” of its operations in southern Rafah in the Gaza Strip. As a result, numerous civilians who had sought refuge there had fled again.

The development “does not mean that the war will soon be over,” Netanyahu told Israeli broadcaster Channel 14 on Sunday.

The prime minister is facing growing protests in Israel over his failure to secure the release of the 116 hostages kidnapped on October 7 and still in Gaza. According to the army, 42 of them are dead.

“I believe Netanyahu is leading Israel to ruin,” protester and former spy Gonen Ben Itzhak told AFP.

The prime minister on Sunday again rejected the permanent ceasefire that Hamas had called for during temporary talks with the United States and other mediators.

“The goal is to release the kidnapped people and uproot the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said.

The October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel that sparked the war left 1,195 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.

At least 37,626 people were killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive, again mostly civilians, the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said.

In Washington, the Israeli defense minister was greeted by several dozen protesters with chants of “war criminal” as he left the meeting with Blinken.

Gallant also held talks with CIA chief Bill Burns, the key US contact in the negotiations to release the prisoners.

Gallant stressed that Israel’s primary obligation was to release the hostages without exception.

Netanyahu vowed in his interview: “We will win,” but US officials expressed doubts about Israel’s goal of completely destroying Hamas.

– “We are completely trapped” –

In the southern Gaza Strip, the city center of Rafah lies deserted after most of its residents and those seeking safety fled the advancing Israeli troops.

“There is no water or food left. We are completely trapped,” said Haitham Abu Taha, one of the few Palestinians who have returned.

Abu Taha, 30, spoke of the “danger of quadcopter drones that mercilessly attack every passerby on the street.”

The plight of the 2.4 million people in the narrow strip of land known as Gaza, who were already impoverished before the war, has been exacerbated by the fighting.

United Nations agencies have repeatedly warned of severe shortages of essential goods, and France and Jordan on Monday called on Israel to lift all “restrictions” on aid deliveries by land.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN High Commissioner for Palestinian Refugees, said the “collapse of public order” in Gaza had led to “rampant looting and smuggling”.

The UNRWA chief said such cases hamper the delivery of aid to an area facing “catastrophic hunger”.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which coordinates almost all aid to Gaza, has been in crisis since January, when Israel accused about a dozen of its 13,000 Gaza-based staff of involvement in the attacks that sparked the war.

The families of those killed in the October 7 Hamas attack in Israel sued UNRWA on Monday, claiming it enabled the unprecedented bloodshed, court documents show.

An independent UNRWA investigation led by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna found some “neutrality-related issues” but said Israel had not yet provided any evidence to support its main allegations.

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