The Israeli army announced an expansion of its month-old compound on Thursday operation in northern Gaza to include part of Beit Lahiya, a city that has been heavily bombed since the first days of the war and where Israel says Hamas militants have regrouped.

The military said in a statement that “troops began operating” in the Beit Lahiya area after intelligence services indicated the presence of militants there. Hamas has repeatedly regrouped in areas where the army was already conducting major operations.

The city in the northwestern corner of Gaza was one of the first targets of the ground invasion launched more than a year ago, following Hamas’ attack on southern Israel. The northern third of the territory has since been surrounded by Israeli forces.

Israel launched another major offensive in nearby Jabaliya, a decades-old urban refugee camp, in early October. It has sharply limited the amount of aid entering northern Gaza and ordered a complete evacuation. Tens of thousands have fled to nearby Gaza City in the latest mass displacement of the war.

The Israel-Hamas war began after Palestinian militants stormed into Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and kidnapping 250 others. Israel’s military response in Gaza has killed more than 43,000 people, Palestinian health officials say. They make no distinction between civilians and fighters, but say more than half of the dead were women and children.

Palestinian medical sources told the Al Jazeera network that around 20 people were killed in northern Gaza alone on Thursday during the expanding Israeli operations in Beit Lahiya, including five killed and five others injured in a raid on a house in the city.

The Israeli military said Thursday it is continuing to facilitate “the safe evacuation of Palestinians from combat areas in northern Gaza through organized routes for their safety,” after an IDF commander said the army was working to evacuate all civilians from the Gaza Strip. north of the Gaza Strip. the war-torn Palestinian territory indefinitely.

At a briefing to journalists on Tuesday evening, Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, who commands the IDF’s 162nd Division operating in Gaza, said that as troops were twice forced to enter some areas, including the Jabaliya camp, “it is not the intention to allow the residents of the northern Gaza Strip camp to return to their homes.”

He said humanitarian aid – which the Biden administration has demanded that Israel increase the flow into Gaza – would be allowed to enter the south of the enclave “regularly” but not the north because, he said, “there were no civilians left.”

However, between 75,000 and 95,000 people remained in northern Gaza as of Monday, according to a United Nations estimate.

The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said around 100,000 people had been forced to flee the region since Israel launched its offensive in northern Gaza, and that “the death toll in North Gaza Governorate has been in the hundreds over the past month, possibly even above 1,000. .”

The UN agency said in July that 1.9 million Gazans had been forcibly displaced from their homes.

“In other words, it is now estimated that around nine out of 10 people in Gaza have been internally displaced, often multiple times,” the UN humanitarian agency said.

That number has likely increased since then, given Israel’s continued military operations and routine evacuation orders.

There is no sign of an end to Israel’s parallel war with Hezbollah

Several major Israeli airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs early Thursday, including one at a location adjacent to Lebanon’s only international airport. The Israeli military had issued an evacuation notice for the site, saying there were Hezbollah facilities there, without giving more details.

Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a speech broadcast on Wednesday that the Lebanese militant group would only be open to ceasefire negotiations once “the enemy stops its aggression.” His speech marked the 40-day period of mourning since the former Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was murdered in Beirut.

Hezbollah began shooting at Israel on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Both groups are considered proxy forces backed by Iran, which insisted Thursday that despite Israel killing many top commanders, its “Axis of Resistance” against Israel remained robust. More than 3,000 people have been killed and about 13,600 injured in Lebanon since the conflict broke out, according to the Ministry of Health.

Lebanon’s state news agency said an Israeli drone strike hit a car at an army checkpoint in the southern port city of Sidon, killing three people and wounding several others, including UN peacekeepers based in southern Lebanon. The National News Agency said one of the wounded was taken to hospital while the peacekeepers were treated for minor injuries at the site of the attack near the northern entrance to Sidon, Lebanon’s third-largest city. There was no immediate information about the identities of the dead.

The UN peacekeeping force in the country, UNIFIL, said in a statement that a convoy “bringing newly arrived peacekeepers to southern Lebanon was passing through Saida when a drone strike occurred nearby,” lightly wounding five peacekeepers, who it said Lebanese Red Cross were treated. doctors on site.

“They will continue to their posts,” UNFIL said of the troops in the convoy, adding: “We remind all actors of their obligation to avoid actions that endanger peacekeepers or civilians. Differences should be resolved at the negotiating table, not through violence. .”

Earlier Thursday, a drone strike hit a car on a highway just outside Beirut, killing one woman, according to local media.