Israeli jets hit over 70 targets in overnight strikes in Gaza ‘terror nest’, says IDF

Dozens of fighter jets struck more than 70 targets in the Daraja Tuffah area of the Gaza Strip early Wednesday, according to a CNN report, citing the Israel Defence Forces.

“A short while ago, dozens of fighter jets struck over 70 targets in the Daraj Tuffah area,” the CNN quoted IDF as saying on Telegram, describing it as an area “where a large number of terror attacks against Israel are directed.”

“Furthermore, terror infrastructure used by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization was also struck,” it said.

On Tuesday, Israel said it recaptured Gaza border areas from Hamas, the fourth day of fierce fighting that has left thousands dead on both sides since the militants launched a surprise attack.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned Israel’s military campaign following Saturday’s onslaught is only the start of a sustained war to destroy Hamas and “change the Middle East”.

Fears of a regional conflagration have surged ahead of an expected Israeli ground incursion into Gaza, the crowded, impoverished enclave from where Hamas launched its land, air and sea attack on the Jewish Sabbath.

The death toll in Israel has surged above 1,000 following the worst attack in the country’s 75-year history, while Gaza officials reported 900 people killed so far, and Israel’s army said the bodies of roughly 1,500 militants had been found.

International NGOs issued a stark warning over the health and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas gunmen killed more than 100 people in the kibbutz of Beeri alone, said Moti Bukjin, a volunteer with the charity Zaka that recovers bodies in accordance with Jewish law.

United States President Joe Biden condemned the Hamas attacks as “sheer evil”, and Netanyahu said the militants committed “savagery never seen since the Holocaust”, including the beheading of soldiers.

Condemnation from Western leaders contrasted markedly with pro-Palestinian sentiment in the Arab world where people distributed sweets, danced and chanted prayers in support of “resistance” to Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territories.

“My entire life, I have seen Israel kill us, confiscate our lands and arrest our children,” said Farah al-Saadi, 52, a coffee vendor from Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank who praised the Hamas assault.

The Israeli army has called up 300,000 reservists and massed tanks and other heavy armour both near Gaza and on the northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire continued.

The military said its forces had largely reclaimed the embattled south and the border around Gaza, and dislodged holdout Hamas fighters from more than a dozen towns and kibbutzim.

But late Tuesday in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, troops backed by helicopters and drones exchanged fire with several militants, leaving three fighters dead, the army said.

A new barrage of rockets was also fired from Gaza towards Ashkelon.

“Around 1,500 bodies of Hamas (fighters) have been found in Israel around the Gaza Strip,” army spokesman Richard Hecht said earlier.

In Kfar Aza kibbutz, where Israeli forces say Hamas massacred more than 100 civilians, Israeli soldiers prepared to remove several of their compatriots in black body bags.

With inputs from agencies