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Israel Ups Bombing in Central Gaza, Strikes Kill 17 People

27 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians inspect the al-Qassam Mosque and surrounding buildings where Israeli army attacked and caused a big destruction in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
27 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians inspect the al-Qassam Mosque and surrounding buildings where Israeli army attacked and caused a big destruction in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
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Israel Ups Bombing in Central Gaza, Strikes Kill 17 People

27 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians inspect the al-Qassam Mosque and surrounding buildings where Israeli army attacked and caused a big destruction in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa
27 November 2024, Palestinian Territories, Nuseirat: Palestinians inspect the al-Qassam Mosque and surrounding buildings where Israeli army attacked and caused a big destruction in the Nuseirat Refugee Camp in central Gaza. Photo: Omar Ashtawy Apaimages/APA Images via ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Israeli military strikes killed at least 17 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, medics said, as forces stepped up bombardments on central areas and pushed tanks deeper in the north and south of the enclave.
Six people were killed in two separate air strikes on a house and near the hospital of Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, while four others were killed when an Israeli strike hit a motorcycle in Khan Younis in the south, Reuters said.
In Nuseirat, one of the Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee camps, Israeli planes carried out several airstrikes destroying a multi-floor building and hitting roads outside mosques. At least seven people were killed in some of those strikes, health officials said.
Medics said at least two people, a woman and a child, were killed in tank shelling that hit western areas of Nuseirat, while an airstrike killed five others in a house nearby.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, tanks pushed deeper into the northern-west area of the city, residents said.
There has been no Israeli comment on the fighting in Gaza overnight and early Thursday.
Israel's 13-month campaign in Gaza, with the avowed intent of eradicating Hamas militants, has killed nearly 44,200 people and displaced nearly all the enclave's population at least once, according to Gaza officials. Vast swathes of the territory are in ruins.
The war was launched in response to an attack by Hamas-led fighters who killed around 1,200 people and captured more than 250 hostages in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has said.
Months of attempts to negotiate a ceasefire have yielded scant progress, and negotiations are now on hold. Mediator Qatar has suspended its efforts until the sides are prepared to make concessions.
A ceasefire in the parallel conflict between Israel and Hamas' Lebanese ally Hezbollah took effect before dawn on Wednesday, bringing a halt to hostilities that had escalated sharply in recent months and overshadowed the conflict in Gaza.
Announcing the Lebanon accord on Tuesday, US President Joe Biden said he would now renew his push for an elusive agreement in Gaza, urging Israel and Hamas to seize the moment.

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Arab World

Syria War Monitor Says More than 130 Dead in Army-Extremist Clashes

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
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Syria War Monitor Says More than 130 Dead in Army-Extremist Clashes

Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)
Fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ride in military vehicles in the eastern outskirts of the town of Atarib, in Syria's northern province of Aleppo on November 27, 2024, during clashes with the Syrian army. (Photo by Abdulaziz KETAZ / AFP)

A Syria war monitor on Thursday said clashes between the army and extremists killed more than 130 combatants in the worst fighting in the country's northwest in years, as the government also reported fierce battles.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on the Syrian army in the northern province of Aleppo on Wednesday.
The toll "in battles ongoing for the past 24 hours has risen to 132, including 65 fighters from HTS", 18 from allied factions "and 49 members of regime forces", said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
Some of the clashes, in an area straddling Idlib and Aleppo provinces, are less than 10 kilometers (six miles) southwest of the outskirts of Aleppo city.
HTS, led by Al-Qaeda's former Syria branch, controls swathes of much of the northwest Idlib area and slivers of neighboring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.
An AFP correspondent reported heavy, uninterrupted clashes east of the city of Idlib since Wednesday morning, including air strikes.
A military statement carried by state news agency SANA said that "armed terrorist organizations grouped under so-called 'Nusra terrorist front' present in Aleppo and Idlib provinces launched a large, broad-fronted attack" on Wednesday morning.
It said the attack with "medium and heavy weapons targeted safe villages and towns and our military sites in those areas".
The army "in cooperation with friendly forces" confronted the attack "which is still continuing", inflicting "heavy losses" on the armed groups, the military statement said, without reporting army losses.
Key highway
The Observatory said HTS was able to advance in Idlib province, taking control of Dadikh, Kafr Batikh and Sheikh Ali "after heavy clashes with the regime forces with Russian air cover".
"The villages have strategic importance due to their proximity to the M5 international highway", the monitor said, adding the factions, which already took control of two other locations, were "trying to cut the Aleppo-Damascus international highway".
The Observatory said that "Russian warplanes intensified air strikes", targeting the vicinity of Sarmin and other areas in Idlib province, alongside "heavy artillery shelling" and rocket fire.
Syria's conflict broke out after President Bashar al-Assad repressed anti-government protests in 2011, and spiraled into a complex conflict drawing in foreign armies and extremists.
It has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country's infrastructure and industry.
The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire -- repeatedly violated but still largely holding -- brokered by Türkiye and Damascus ally Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.