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Israel Expands Ground Assault into Gaza as Fears Rise over Airstrikes near Crowded Hospitals

This image taken from the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip on October 29, 2023, shows a black cloud of smoke ascending from the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. The Israeli army has raised the number of troops fighting inside the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said on October 29, 2023, as the military stepped up its war on Hamas in the tiny Palestinian territory. (Photo by FADEL SENNA / AFP)
This image taken from the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip on October 29, 2023, shows a black cloud of smoke ascending from the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. The Israeli army has raised the number of troops fighting inside the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said on October 29, 2023, as the military stepped up its war on Hamas in the tiny Palestinian territory. (Photo by FADEL SENNA / AFP)
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Israel Expands Ground Assault into Gaza as Fears Rise over Airstrikes near Crowded Hospitals

This image taken from the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip on October 29, 2023, shows a black cloud of smoke ascending from the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. The Israeli army has raised the number of troops fighting inside the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said on October 29, 2023, as the military stepped up its war on Hamas in the tiny Palestinian territory. (Photo by FADEL SENNA / AFP)
This image taken from the Israeli border with the Gaza Strip on October 29, 2023, shows a black cloud of smoke ascending from the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas. The Israeli army has raised the number of troops fighting inside the Gaza Strip, a spokesman said on October 29, 2023, as the military stepped up its war on Hamas in the tiny Palestinian territory. (Photo by FADEL SENNA / AFP)

Israeli troops and armor pushed deeper into northern and central Gaza on Monday, as the UN and medical staff warned that airstrikes are hitting closer to hospitals where tens of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter alongside thousands of wounded.
Video obtained by the Associated Press showed an Israeli tank and bulldozer in central Gaza blocking the territory's main north-south highway, which the Israeli military earlier told Palestinians to use to escape the expanding ground offensive.
When asked whether forces had positioned on the road, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said “we expanded our operations" but would not comment on specific deployments.
The video shows a car approaching an earth barrier across the road, where a tank is parked behind a small building. The car stops and turns around. As it heads away, the tank appears to open fire, and an explosion engulfs the car.
The journalist who was filming the scene from another car races away in terror, screaming, “Go back! Go back!” at an approaching ambulance and other vehicles. The Gaza Health Ministry later said three people were killed in the struck car.
The Israeli advances put their forces on both sides of Gaza City and the surrounding areas of northern Gaza, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “second stage” of the war ignited by Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 incursion. Casualties on both sides are expected to rise sharply as Israeli forces and Hamas group battle in dense residential areas.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the north and would no longer be able to escape if the north-south highway is blocked. Around 117,000 displaced people are staying in hospitals in northern Gaza, alongside thousands of patients and staff, hoping they will be safe from strikes, according to UN figures.
Most residents heeded Israel's orders to flee to the southern part of the besieged territory, but many stayed in part because Israel has also bombarded targets in so-called safe zones.
The death toll among Palestinians passed 8,000, mostly women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said. The toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. More than 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes.
Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas' initial attack, also an unprecedented figure.
Israeli forces appeared to be driving deeper into Gaza from the north. Video released Monday by the military showed armored vehicles moving among buildings and soldiers taking positions inside a house.
Hagari said additional infantry, armored, engineering and artillery units had entered Gaza and the operations would continue to “expand and intensify,” though Israel has stopped short of calling its operations an all-out invasion.
The military said Monday that overnight its troops had killed dozens of militants who attacked from inside buildings and tunnels. It said that in the last few days, it had struck more than 600 militant targets, including weapons depots and anti-tank missile launching positions. The reports of targeting could not be independently confirmed.
Hamas’ military wing said its militants clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest Gaza Strip with small arms and anti-tank missiles. Palestinian militants have continued firing rockets into Israel, including toward its commercial hub, Tel Aviv.
Also Sunday, the largest convoy of humanitarian aid yet — 33 trucks — entered southern Gaza from Egypt. Relief workers say the amount is still far less than what is needed in the territory, where the population of 2.3 million people has been running low on food, water, medicine and fuel after weeks under Israeli siege.
On Saturday, crowds of people broke into four UN facilities and took food supplies in what the UNcalled a sign that civil order was starting to break down amid increasing desperation.
Israel’s siege has pushed Gaza’s infrastructure nearly to collapse. With no central power for weeks, hospitals are struggling to keep emergency generators running to operate incubators and other life-saving equipment. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, has been trying to keep water pumps and bakeries running. Last week, UN officials said hunger was growing.
The increase in aid trucks came after US President Joe Biden emphasized to Netanyahu “the need to immediately and significantly” increase the entry of humanitarian aid, the US said.
Israel also opened two water lines in southern Gaza within the past week, according to the Israeli military body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs. The Associated Press could not independently verify that either line was functioning.
Communications were restored to most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people Sunday after more than a day without phone and internet services.
Meanwhile, crowded hospitals in northern Gaza came under growing threat. Strikes hit near Gaza City's Shifa and Al Quds hospitals and the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza in recent days, the UN and residents said Monday.
All 10 hospitals operating in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders in recent days, the UN's office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs said. Staff have refused to leave, saying evacuation would mean death for patients on ventilators.
Tens of thousands of civilians are sheltering in Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest. Israel accuses Hamas of having a secret command post beneath the hospital but has not provided much evidence. Hamas denies the allegations.
Strikes hit within 50 meters (yards) of Al Quds Hospital after it received two calls from Israeli authorities on Sunday ordering it to evacuate, the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service said. Some windows were blown out, and rooms were covered in debris. It said 14,000 people are sheltering there
Israel says it targets Hamas fighters and infrastructure and that the militants operate among civilians, putting them in danger.
The military escalation has increased domestic pressure on Israel’s government to secure the release of 239 hostages seized by Hamas fighters during the Oct. 7 attack.
Hamas says it is ready to release all hostages if Israel releases all of the thousands of Palestinians held in its prisons. Desperate family members of the Israeli captives met with Netanyahu on Saturday and expressed support for an exchange. Israel has dismissed the Hamas offer.
“If Hamas does not feel military pressure, nothing will move forward,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told families of the hostages Sunday.
The fighting has raised concerns that the violence could spread across the region. Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah have engaged in daily skirmishes along Israel’s northern border.
In the West Bank, Israel said its warplanes carried out airstrikes Monday against militants clashing with its forces in the Jenin refugee camp, the scene of repeated Israeli raids. Hamas said four of its fighters were killed there. As of Sunday, Israeli forces and settlers have killed 115 Palestinians, including 33 minors, in the West Bank, half of them during search-and-arrest operations, the UN said.
The Israeli military said early Monday that its aircraft hit military infrastructure in Syria after rockets from there fell in open Israeli territory. Syrian opposition groups said strikes destroyed three trucks entering eastern Syria from Iraq, and soon after Iranian-backed militias fired rockets at US positions in Syria.
Roughly 250,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes because of violence along the border with Gaza and the northern border with Lebanon, according to the Israeli military.

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Arab World

Where Does Hamas Still Hold Territory in Gaza?

 A concrete block marking the Israeli military’s “Yellow Line” in Bureij, central Gaza (File photo: AFP). 
 A concrete block marking the Israeli military’s “Yellow Line” in Bureij, central Gaza (File photo: AFP). 
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Where Does Hamas Still Hold Territory in Gaza?

 A concrete block marking the Israeli military’s “Yellow Line” in Bureij, central Gaza (File photo: AFP). 
 A concrete block marking the Israeli military’s “Yellow Line” in Bureij, central Gaza (File photo: AFP). 

Nearly a week ago, Hussam al-Astal, who leads an Israeli-backed armed group operating in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, appeared in a video announcing the start of an operation he described as a “cleansing of displacement camps in the Mawasi area.”

His remarks came after an attack by another armed group linked to the Israeli military, which resulted in the abduction of dozens of residents from an area theoretically considered to be under Hamas control in Gaza.

Since the ceasefire agreement was announced in October 2025 under US President Donald Trump’s plan, an imaginary boundary known as the “Yellow Line” has separated Israeli-occupied areas east of the line, estimated at more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, from areas west of it held by Hamas and other Palestinian factions.

However, intensified operations by Israeli-backed armed groups, including abductions and forced displacement under covering fire from the Israeli military, have raised new questions about the extent of the territory where Hamas still exercises authority.

More than a year after the ceasefire agreement, which Israel has repeatedly violated, Israeli forces have also shifted their positions along the Yellow Line, expanding the area they occupy to more than 65 percent of the Gaza Strip’s approximately 360 square kilometers.

Last week, members of armed groups infiltrated a displacement camp near Abu Hamid roundabout, between central and eastern Khan Younis. Reinforcements subsequently arrived in four-wheel-drive vehicles, while Israeli drones flew overhead to provide support.

The operation resulted in the abduction of 35 Palestinians. Some were released after more than 10 hours of intensive interrogation by Israeli officers, while three remained in captivity.

A similar operation took place at an intersection near the Shujaiya neighborhood. Dozens of those detained were released, while one person remained in custody.

Israeli Occupation Extends Beyond the Yellow Line

According to a map of the areas occupied by Israel, Israeli forces now hold 67 percent of the Gaza Strip as they continue expanding the area covered by the Yellow Line.

In northern Gaza, the Israeli military occupies the entire town of Beit Hanoun, at the northernmost end of the territory, parts of Beit Lahia and a larger section of Jabalia refugee camp.

In Gaza City governorate, which includes the territory’s main urban center, Israeli forces hold all the city’s eastern neighborhoods, including Tuffah, Shujaiya and Zeitoun. Small areas of Zeitoun remain inhabited by displaced Palestinians living under difficult security and humanitarian conditions.

Central Gaza has recently witnessed extensive military activity, with Israeli forces expanding their positions by pushing the Yellow Line farther west, particularly around the Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps, al-Masdar and areas east of Deir al-Balah.

These operations have forced more Palestinians to flee their homes and shelters in recent days.

In southern Gaza, Israel occupies the entire city of Rafah, apart from a small section of Mawasi in the city’s northwestern area, along the southern boundary with Khan Younis.

Israeli forces also occupy large parts of southern Khan Younis, while Mawasi remains under Palestinian authority. The city’s eastern areas, meanwhile, remain entirely under Israeli occupation.

Where Is Hamas?

Four Hamas field sources and two sources from other Palestinian factions told Asharq Al-Awsat in separate accounts that Israeli forces hold most Palestinian areas east of Salah al-Din Road, the main highway connecting northern, central and southern Gaza.

Israeli forces also occupy large parts of the territory’s northern and southern regions.

The sources, who are based in different parts of Gaza, said residents west of Salah al-Din Road, as well as those in areas south of the northern region and north of the southern region, continue to observe a Hamas presence and authority.

However, the movement faces complicated circumstances that prevent it from fully maintaining security and order.

One source estimated that “Hamas’ grip has become fragile and effectively extends to no more than 17 to 20 percent of the Gaza Strip.”

Nevertheless, Hamas has been seeking to assert its presence by proposing humanitarian projects for residents and attempting to confront Israeli-backed armed groups militarily.

Its members have set ambushes for armed men infiltrating areas under its authority, but the Israeli military frequently intervenes to provide covering fire for the groups it supports.

In Gaza City governorate, which once served as the center of Hamas’s political, governmental and security activities, the movement’s position remains unstable because of Israeli attacks targeting the leadership of Hamas, its government and its armed wing, the Qassam Brigades.

Central Gaza currently represents the area where Hamas and its various institutions retain their strongest presence.

According to the sources, this is largely because the central region did not suffer the same level of damage as other parts of the territory during the war, and Israeli ground forces entered only limited sections of it.

In Khan Younis, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, Hamas faces more complicated conditions. Nevertheless, its hold there can be described as moderate, particularly in the densely populated Mawasi area, which shelters large numbers of displaced Palestinians.

The movement relies on ambush tactics to confront the threat posed by armed groups and Israeli forces in southern and eastern Khan Younis, as well as in the eastern parts of the governorate’s central areas.

These include locations around Abu Hamid roundabout and the Khan Younis municipal headquarters.

Israeli Firepower Extends Beyond Its Positions

Two field sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the differences between areas where Hamas maintains a strong security presence and those where its grip is fragile can be attributed to several factors.

Among them is Israel’s ability to dominate areas from a distance using elevated platforms and drones, as well as airstrikes targeting anyone approaching areas near Salah al-Din Road from the western side in certain locations.

Another factor is Israel’s use of armed groups as a means of extending its reach by pushing farther into areas close to the road.

This has occurred particularly in southern and eastern Khan Younis, northwestern Mawasi in Rafah, eastern Gaza City, and the areas around Jabalia and Beit Lahia in northern Gaza.

More recently, similar operations have also taken place in central Gaza.

The two sources explained that this complex security situation makes it difficult for government security forces or other personnel to reach areas close to the western side of Salah al-Din Road.

As a result, extensive additional areas have effectively fallen under indirect Israeli security control.

This allows armed groups, people collaborating with Israel and others to operate freely in those locations.

The sources said Hamas’ so-called “resistance security” apparatus has responded by periodically setting ambushes for members of these groups, seeking to kill or capture them and prevent them from carrying out their plans.

According to a third source, the Israeli military uses the armed groups to conduct sweeping operations in new areas beyond the Yellow Line, east of Salah al-Din Road.

Israeli forces then advance into those same areas, either several hours later on the same day or the following day, carrying out engineering operations, including bulldozing land and other activities.

The military subsequently extends the Yellow Line to expand the territory under its direct occupation.

The three sources said Israeli forces kill or wound anyone attempting to cross Salah al-Din Road, particularly in areas opposite Khan Younis in the south and Gaza City in the north.

They added that Israeli operations have recently intensified east of Deir al-Balah and al-Masdar in central Gaza.

Israeli forces have also increasingly targeted people approaching areas on the western side of the road, suggesting that the territory over which Israel exercises dominance through firepower now exceeds 70 percent of the Gaza Strip.

Open Defiance

A fourth Hamas source defended the movement’s loss of security authority during and after the war, describing it as “natural” given the changes that occurred in Gaza during Israeli ground incursions into its cities.

The source said government security agencies and those affiliated with Palestinian factions had repeatedly attempted to maintain order deep inside the western areas of the Gaza Strip.

However, each attempt was met with renewed attacks, most of them Israeli airstrikes targeting security positions in forward areas or even locations far from territory directly occupied by Israel.

The Hamas source acknowledged that the weakening of security had recently prompted some members of local families to engage in what he described as “open defiance” of attempts to arrest them in connection with criminal cases.

Some had opened fire on Hamas police officers, while in one incident individuals seized a weapon. Family elders subsequently intervened, and legal and tribal settlements were reached.

As an example, the source cited an incident in Deir al-Balah a few days earlier in which a member of a local clan killed two police officers during an attempt to arrest him.

The deterioration in security has been compounded by intensive Israeli attacks targeting Hamas’ security apparatus.

According to Gaza’s Interior Ministry, these systematic attacks have killed 76 police officers and security personnel since the ceasefire took effect in October 2025.

Arab World

Hezbollah Members Questioned Over Suspected Reconnaissance Mission in Northern Lebanon

A Hezbollah member in Syria in 2017 (AFP)
A Hezbollah member in Syria in 2017 (AFP)
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Hezbollah Members Questioned Over Suspected Reconnaissance Mission in Northern Lebanon

A Hezbollah member in Syria in 2017 (AFP)
A Hezbollah member in Syria in 2017 (AFP)

Investigations are continuing into the arrest of five Hezbollah members in a remote mountainous area between the Bsharri and Batroun districts of northern Lebanon on Tuesday, amid questions about the purpose of their movements and whether they were conducting surveillance.

Judicial sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that investigators were still gathering information and examining why the men had been moving through isolated, uninhabited areas.

“Preliminary information suggests they were on a reconnaissance mission to survey the area,” the sources indicated.

They added that the five were not alone but were accompanied by others monitoring them from a distance. Following the arrests, those individuals reportedly retrieved mobile phones from a room where the detainees had left their belongings. The five had been arrested without their phones.

The suspects claimed they were visiting the area as tourists, an explanation that raised questions, particularly because one lives locally while the others come from South Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

Further suspicions arose over documents and maps allegedly found in their possession, some of which they reportedly attempted to tear up as an Internal Security Forces patrol approached.

Asharq Al-Awsat also learned that investigators were leaning toward bringing charges against the detainees in their individual capacities rather than as Hezbollah members, as occurred in a previous explosives-smuggling case.

According to the judicial sources, the suspected surveillance raises questions about whether the survey was linked to security or military preparations, specific targets, or plans to establish a security or military facility.

Salam: No Limits on Investigation

Prime Minister Nawaf Salam followed developments from Antalya, where he arrived to lead Lebanon’s delegation to a climate summit.

“The era of avoiding accountability and covering things up is over,” Salam stressed, adding that the investigation would face “no limits other than those imposed by the law.”

Gemayel: Hezbollah Has Lost Its Way to the South

Lebanese Kataeb Party leader MP Samy Gemayel stepped up his criticism of Hezbollah, linking the arrests to recent security and political developments.

“On the roads to Jerusalem, Damascus and Sanaa, Hezbollah lost its way to the South and ended up in Fanar and the mountains of Bsharri and Tannourine, after Dahr al-Baidar,” he wrote on X.

He argued that dragging Lebanon into wars, defying state decisions, bringing in a truckload of explosives and deploying security groups in the heart of Mount Lebanon were threats to national security and civil peace.

“If all this does not warrant referring Hezbollah’s leadership to the Judicial Council, then the council should be abolished!” he added.

Lebanese Forces MPs Strida Tawk Geagea and Melhem Tawk warned of possible organized security preparations in the area.

They argued that the available information could not be dismissed as an ordinary security incident.

According to published reports they cited, the seized documents contained names of groups, assignments of personnel and references to weapons, including sniper rifles.

The lawmakers questioned why the detainees were in the area, what documents they had attempted to destroy, who had assigned them their mission and what they intended to accomplish.

They warned that the incident raised the possibility of “reconnaissance movements or organized security preparations targeting peaceful Lebanese areas or specific individuals.”

The two urged the interior and defense ministers and judicial authorities to expand the investigation, establish individual and organizational responsibility, and prosecute anyone implicated by the evidence.

The Free Patriotic Movement, meanwhile, called on security and judicial authorities to complete their investigations and disclose the circumstances of the case to the public as quickly as proper legal procedures allow.

It emphasized that security in Batroun, Bsharri and all other Lebanese regions falls exclusively under the responsibility of the state and its institutions.

The party rejected any security activity outside state authority, insisting that proven violations must be punished without political protection for those responsible.

At the same time, it warned against exploiting the incident to stoke sectarian or regional tensions or deepen divisions among Lebanese citizens.

Arab World

Türkiye's President Calls the War in Gaza an 'Ecocide' at the UN Climate Summit

Erdogan pledged to continue investigations into the investment funds scandal until its eradication and to prevent its recurrence (Turkish Presidency)
Erdogan pledged to continue investigations into the investment funds scandal until its eradication and to prevent its recurrence (Turkish Presidency)
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Türkiye's President Calls the War in Gaza an 'Ecocide' at the UN Climate Summit

Erdogan pledged to continue investigations into the investment funds scandal until its eradication and to prevent its recurrence (Turkish Presidency)
Erdogan pledged to continue investigations into the investment funds scandal until its eradication and to prevent its recurrence (Turkish Presidency)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday called for the world to recognize the environmental impacts of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and asked the Israeli government to grant more aid access to the Palestinian territory.

Erdogan was speaking at the UN climate summit, known as COP31, in Antalya, Türkiye.

“What has taken place in Gaza is not only a genocide, but it is also an ecocide,” Erdogan said to applause by world leaders and other climate envoys.

A UN-backed panel of independent experts concluded last year that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the allegations and has accused the panel of antisemitism, The Associated Press said.

“Centuries old olive trees have been cut down. The soil and water have been polluted in Gaza, and cities in Gaza have been turned into enormous piles of rubble,” Erdogan said. “With Gaza’s destroyed infrastructure, compounded by torrential rain and by flooding, tens of thousands of tents and shelters have been inundated.”

Israel's Foreign Ministry responded in a post on X, accusing Erdogan of “using an international forum to push his anti-Israel campaign of lies” and of supporting Hamas. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza following attacks by Hamas-led militants in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Militants killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.

“Those who truly care about Gaza should demand that Hamas disarm so reconstruction can begin,” the statement read. Israel wasn't invited to COP31.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 74,000 people, according to local health authorities, and destroyed much of Gaza. The Health Ministry, part of Gaza’s Hamas-run government, doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says women and children make up nearly half of the dead.

Erdogan has been an outspoken critic of Israel, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called Erdogan an antisemitic “tyrant.”

“The latest country to become a superspreader of antisemitic lies is Türkiye," Netanyahu said in September while speaking at the UN General Assembly.

In recent days, heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding destroyed many of the tents and makeshift shelters that Palestinian residents now live in. At least four people were killed earlier this week when a sand embankment collapsed on their shelter. The rain also left many displaced people without food, drinking water or a dry place to sleep.

Humanitarian aid enters the territory, but imports remain far below levels before the start of the Israel-Hamas war — and many items remain blocked by Israel.

A 2025 report by the UN Environment Program also outlined the devastating reality of Gaza’s environment since the war began.

Remote sensing assessments showed that by May 2025, more than 97% of the tree crops, 82% of annual crops, 95% of shrubland and 89% of grass and fallow land had been damaged, according to the UNEP report.

“As of now, our families only have 3% of cropland to use, and that is assuming it’s distributed across 2 million Palestinians" in the Gaza Strip, said Mohammed Usrof, co-founder and executive director of the Palestinian Institute for Climate Strategy.

“Not talking about these losses undermines Palestinians’ food supply, livelihoods and ability to remain on their land,” Usrof said.

The territory’s ability to dispose of garbage, treat sewage and deliver clean water has been virtually decimated by three years of war. This has made grim living conditions worse and raised health risks for hundreds of thousands of people deprived of adequate shelter, food and medicine, aid groups say.

The conflict has “all but eliminated” Gazan fishing livelihoods, the report said, highlighting how marine ecosystems have been contaminated with munitions, sewage and solid waste.

“For people in Gaza, this translates into severely limited access to safe drinking water, greater exposure to waterborne diseases and toxic substances, deepening food insecurity and the loss of livelihoods dependent on agriculture and fishing,” Ghiwa Nakat, executive director at Greenpeace MENA, told The Associated Press.

Nakat also warned that Gaza's environment could take years to recover.

“The environmental damage will not end when the war ends,” Nakat said. “Contaminated soil and groundwater, destroyed ecosystems and the collapse of essential environmental infrastructure could undermine public health, food security and livelihoods for generations, threatening communities’ resilience and their ability to recover.”

World leaders began formal talks at COP31 this week, seeking agreement on concrete steps to curb global warming after a year of deadly floods, heat waves and other climate-related disasters.

More than 70 world leaders and senior government officials are speaking at the summit, though some key leaders are absent, including heads of state from the United States, China and India.