Israeli troops engaged in close-quarters combat against Hamas, both sides say
TEL AVIV, Israel – Close-quarters ground combat between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in parts of northern Gaza Strip over the weekend, both sides said Sunday. The fighting fit into a now familiar scenario: Israeli forces returning to an area where they had defeated Hamas earlier in the war only to see the group reconstitute in the power vacuum left behind.
That persistent lawlessness has raised concerns about the future of Gaza. On Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on “Face the Nation” that Hamas was already “coming back” in parts of Gaza and that Israel had not presented the United States with any plan for when the war ends.
That had left him concerned that Israeli victories there would be “not sustainable” and would be followed by a gap “that’s likely to be filled by chaos, by anarchy and ultimately by Hamas again.”
“We’ve been working for many, many weeks on developing credible plans for security, for governance, for rebuilding,” he said. “We haven’t seen that come from Israel, we’ve been working with Arab countries and others on that plan.”
On Sunday, the Israeli military said its soldiers had “eliminated a number of terrorists in close-quarters combat” in the Gaza City neighborhood of Zeitoun. In nearby Jabalia, from which Israel ordered civilians to evacuate Saturday, troops went in overnight after fighter jets struck more than two dozen targets, according to a statement from the military.
The operation was “based on intelligence information regarding attempts by Hamas to reassemble its terrorist infrastructure and operatives in the area,” the statement added.
On Sunday, Hamas said that its fighters were engaged in “fierce clashes” with Israeli soldiers near Jabalia and that they had fired heavy-caliber mortar shells at Israeli forces in Zeitoun. Neither claim could be independently verified.
The United Nations’ human rights chief, Volker Türk, expressed alarm about the fighting in northern Gaza on Sunday.
“I am deeply distressed by the fast-deteriorating conditions in Gaza as Israeli forces intensify airstrikes on Jabalia and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza,” he said in a statement.
Throughout the war, Israeli forces have returned to parts of Gaza that they had previously left, especially in the north. Military analysts have said Hamas may reconstitute itself in those areas because Israel has declined to administer those territories itself, and has also declined to transfer them to non-Hamas Palestinian control.
That has led to lawlessness across much of northern Gaza, including in Gaza City and Jabalia. In Beit Lahia, another northern town, fighting over the weekend killed at least 12 people whose bodies were brought to Kamal Adwan Hospital, Wafa, the official news agency of the Palestinian Authority, reported Sunday.
Palestine TV, a network affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, a rival to Hamas based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, broadcast footage that it said showed Palestinian civilians, including many women and children, fleeing northern Gaza.
Some were on foot, while others were on bicycles, in cars or piled onto carts drawn by a donkeys. The footage could not immediately be independently verified.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.