Israeli airstrikes on southern Gaza intensify as Hamas resurges

Israel’s aerial bombardment of southern Gaza continued into the weekend, stoking fears that the ground offensive could extend to the last few areas where evacuees have found shelter.

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 18 Palestinians in Rafah and Deir Al-Balah, Gaza health officials claimed Saturday.

Fourteen of the victims– including four women and three children – were members of the Hijazi family whose house was struck in Rafah, hospital workers said.

“Two children are still under the rubble, and we don’t, still we don’t know anything about them,” relative Ahmad Hijazi said of the scene.

An additional four people were killed in a separate strike in a house in Al-Balah, officials added.

Israel did not confirm recent airstrikes in either city.

“In stark contrast to Hamas’ intentional attacks on Israeli men, women and children, the IDF follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm,” a military spokesperson insisted.

Rafah is the Gaza Strip’s southern border with Egypt. More than half of the region’s 2.3 million people fled there over the last four months, as the Israel Defense Forces continued with the retaliatory ground assault in northern sections.

A fresh wave of new arrivals came this week, as Israeli forces launched a massive assault on the nearby city of Khan Younis.

There is growing fear among the Palestinians packed into Rafah about a coming Israeli ground offensive in the area they were told to flee to for refuge. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Thursday following a vidist to Khan Younis that forces will continue the campaign to Rafah. “The great pressure that our forces exert on Hamas targets brings us closer to the return of the abductees, more than anything else [we can do]. We will continue until the end, there is no other way.”

The latest military actions in southern Gaza came amid news that Hamas has started resurfacing in areas where Israel withdrew most of its forces a month ago.

The terror group is supposedly deploying police officers and even making salary payments to some of its civil servants in Gaza City, according to four residents and a senior Hamas official.

Hamas leaders have been given orders to re-establish the status quo in parts of the north where Israeli forces have withdrawn – including by preventing the looting of shops and abandoned houses, the anonymous official told the Associated Press.

A Gaza City resident, Saeed Abdel-Bar, said that his cousin received funds from a makeshift Hamas office that distributed $200 payouts to government employees.

The partial salary payments could signal that Israel did not deliver such a crushing blow to the terror group – despite claims that it killed over 9,000 Hamas fighters.

The Israeli military and Hamas have been locked in combat since mid-October, shortly after the latter’s dead terror attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7.

Aside from a brief November ceasefire, the last four months have seen nearly non-stop combat as Israel works to lay waste to Hamas underground tunnel network and to root out its highest-ranking officials.

As the fighting continues, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to travel to the Middle East – including stops in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel, and the West Bank – on Sunday, the State Department announced.

The four-day tour will be Blinken’s fifth trip to the region since Oct. 7.

With Post wires