Nov. 17 (UPI) — Fighting raged in Gaza on Friday as Israel bombed houses in Rafah while warning Palestinians who fled to the south that they must move again as Israel expands its ground attack to regions beyond north Gaza.
Dozens of injured Palestinians were rushed to Nasser Hospital following an explosion east of Khan Younis on Friday.
Hezbollah anti-tank missiles fired into Israel Friday wounded four people in attacks on the northern Israeli kibbutzim of Shumra, Shatula and Menara bordering Lebanon according to the Jerusalem Post, which cited Israel Army radio.
Rockets also were fired at Tel Aviv with Iron Dome interceptors seen over the area, according to the Times of Israel.
And Israeli warplanes struck multiple targets in Lebanon on Friday, too, hitting alleged terrorist infrastructure that the IDF said was controlled by Hezbollah. On X Friday, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said a weapons warehouse was one of the targets.
During a briefing Friday, Hagari said the IDF ground forces entry into southern Gaza will be on “our terms” and he asserted that the IDF is determined to keep advancing wherever Hamas is located.
Israel said Friday it is close to dismantling the Hamas military system in north Gaza as it dropped leaflets in Khan Younis neighborhoods in southern Gaza to evacuate. Palestinians who have fled to the southern part of Gaza to avoid the combat in the north were warned by Israeli leaflets to now move from the south, even they have nowhere safe to go.
According to the media office of the Gaza Hamas government, the death toll in Gaza surpassed 12,000 Friday, including 5,000 children and more than 3,000 women.
UNICEF and the UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, have both said few have doubted the credibility of the death toll numbers from Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry in past rounds of Israeli-Gaza fighting.
The Health Ministry uses data from hospitals and morgues and has released a 212-page document with names and identity numbers of Gazans killed in the war.
Israel argues the Gaza death toll numbers should not be trusted.
According to Israeli news media outlet Haaretz the IDF continued its ground attack in northern Gaza Friday and. citing Palestinian news reports, said a senior member of Hamas’ political wing as well as a former Fatah member associated with Hamas were killed.
Israel agreed Friday to allow two tankers of fuel a day into Gaza to let the U.N. deliver it to water desalination and sewage plants.
In the West Bank, the IDF surrounded a number of hospitals, including the Ibn Sina Hospital, during a raid on Jenin that killed at least three people and left 14 wounded. Several people were detained by the IDF after at least 80 military vehicles entered Jenin according to reports from al-Jazeera and the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The IDF said Palestinian fighters allegedly used ambulances to flee to the hospitals after an exchange of gunfire, prompting Israel to go to the hospitals.
