Iraqi Forces Enter al-Qaim in ‘Last Big Fight’ against ISIS

Iraqi troops storm a building in the town of Anna during the first phase of their drive up the Euphrates valley against ISIS on September 22, 2017. (AFP Photo/MOADH AL-DULAIMI)
Iraqi troops storm a building in the town of Anna during the first phase of their drive up the Euphrates valley against ISIS on September 22, 2017. (AFP Photo/MOADH AL-DULAIMI)
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Iraqi Forces Enter al-Qaim in ‘Last Big Fight’ against ISIS

Iraqi troops storm a building in the town of Anna during the first phase of their drive up the Euphrates valley against ISIS on September 22, 2017. (AFP Photo/MOADH AL-DULAIMI)
Iraqi troops storm a building in the town of Anna during the first phase of their drive up the Euphrates valley against ISIS on September 22, 2017. (AFP Photo/MOADH AL-DULAIMI)

Iraqi forces on Friday entered Al-Qaim, the main town in ISIS’ last bastion in the country, military commanders said.

Backed by Iraqi and US-led coalition air strikes, Iraqi forces unleashed early Friday morning a barrage of artillery fire against militant positions inside the town.

Troops from the army and the elite Counter Terrorism Service "have started the assault on the center of Al-Qaim," Staff Major General Noman Abed al-Zobai, the commander of the 7th Division, told AFP from the scene.

Shortly afterwards, another officer said the town's Gaza district had fallen from terrorist hands.

Iraqi forces launched the operation last week to seize Al-Qaim and its surroundings, a pocket of barren desert along the Euphrates river near the border with Syria.

Home to around 150,000 people, it is one of the last remaining territories in the country still held by ISIS militants after rampaging across Iraq and Syria in 2014.

Welcoming the offensive, the US-led coalition has said around 1,500 terrorists are estimated to remain in the area, which it expects to be the scene of the "last big fight" against the extremist group in Iraq.

“ISIS members have to choose between death and surrender," Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a statement announcing the offensive last week.

ISIS is also under pressure from separate offensives by Syrian regime and US-backed forces in the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor that lies on the other side of the border.

Syrian regime forces said Friday they have liberated the eastern city of Deir Ezzor from ISIS.



Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
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Israel Orders Evacuation of Area Designated as Humanitarian Zone in Gaza

 A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)
A picture taken in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip shows smoke billowing during Israeli army operations in areas east of Khan Younis city on July 26, 2024, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement. (AFP)

Israel’s military ordered the evacuation Saturday of a crowded part of Gaza designated as a humanitarian zone, saying it is planning an operation against Hamas militants in Khan Younis, including parts of Muwasi, a makeshift tent camp where thousands are seeking refuge.

The order comes in response to rocket fire that Israel says originates from the area. It's the second evacuation issued in a week in an area designated for Palestinians fleeing other parts of Gaza. Many Palestinians have been uprooted multiple times in search of safety during Israel's punishing air and ground campaign.

On Monday, after the evacuation order, multiple Israeli airstrikes hit around Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, citing figures from Nasser Hospital.

The area is part of a 60-square-kilometer (roughly 20-square-mile) “humanitarian zone” to which Israel has been telling Palestinians to flee to throughout the war. Much of the area is blanketed with tent camps that lack sanitation and medical facilities and have limited access to aid, United Nations and humanitarian groups say. About 1.8 million Palestinians are sheltering there, according to Israel's estimates. That's more than half Gaza’s pre-war population of 2.3 million.

The war in Gaza has killed more than 39,100 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. The UN estimated in February that some 17,000 children in the territory are now unaccompanied, and the number is likely to have grown since.

The war began with an assault by Hamas fighters on southern Israel on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took about 250 hostages. About 115 are still in Gaza, about a third of them believed to be dead, according to Israeli authorities.