7th consecutive day of rocket fire at southern Israel from Gaza

IDF soldier killed in southern Gaza as fighting intensifies around Jabaliya

Military calls for civilians to evacuate northern Gaza amid latest offensive, but Hamas urges them to ignore warnings and stay put; rockets fired at Ashkelon during Yom Kippur

Staff Sgt. Ittai Fogel (Israel Defense Forces)
Staff Sgt. Ittai Fogel (Israel Defense Forces)

The Israel Defense Forces said on Saturday that it had carried out operations against Hamas operatives throughout the Gaza Strip over the weekend, including in southern Gaza, where an Israeli soldier had been killed in battle a day earlier.

Staff Sgt. Ittai Fogel, 22, of the 401st “Iron Tracks” Brigade, from the West Bank settlement of Yakir, served as a tank commander in the brigade’s 46th Armored Battalion. According to Hebrew media reports, he was killed during an operation in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.

Fogel leaves behind his two parents and four younger brothers. His cousin, Staff Sgt. Elkana Navon, was killed in clashes with Hamas gunmen in the West Bank city of Jenin on August 31.

His death brings the number of Israeli troops killed in the ground offensive in Gaza to 354.

The military confirmed on Saturday that it had been operating in Rafah, and said it had “eliminated a number of terrorists who acted with the aim of attacking our forces.”

Amid the fighting in southern Gaza, the military said that an officer from the School of Combat Engineering had been seriously wounded. He was transferred to a hospital for treatment, and his family was informed.

Smoke plumes billow behind as people gather in the balcony corridors of the Rafei school serving as a displacement shelter in Jabaliya for Palestinian refugees in the northern Gaza Strip on October 9, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)

In central Gaza, the IDF said that troops of the 252nd Division had killed Hamas operatives who were found to be targeting them with anti-tank missiles.

Meanwhile in northern Gaza, where the IDF recently launched a fresh ground offensive to prevent Hamas from reestablishing itself in the war-torn area, the military said that troops of the 162nd Division had eliminated more than 20 terror operatives in Jabaliya over the last day.

Residents of Jabaliya, the largest of the enclave’s historic refugee camps, reported intensifying fighting between Hamas operatives and Israeli troops throughout the weekend.

Residents said that troops also entered the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya on Friday, and ordered them to evacuate their homes and head to safe areas in the south.

Palestinian medics reported at least 19 deaths in the Jabaliya area over the past 24 hours, and the Hamas-run health ministry, whose unverified figures don’t differentiate between combatants and civilians, said that some 150 people had been killed across northern Gaza in the past week.

A Palestinian youth reacts upon seeing the bodies of relatives killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, in front of the al-Maamadani on October 12, 2024 (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)

Also on Saturday, the IDF said that two rockets had been fired at Ashkelon from northern Gaza. Both struck open ground and no injuries were reported.

The incident marked the seventh consecutive day that projectiles were launched at Israel from the Gaza Strip as the war with Hamas enters its second year.

Israel estimates that tens of thousands of Palestinians have remained in northern Gaza throughout the last year of fighting, despite repeated calls for them to evacuate to designated humanitarian zones. It believes that among those who remained there are thousands of Hamas operatives who survived previous rounds of fighting with Israeli forces.

To that end, the IDF issued new evacuation orders over the weekend to two neighborhoods in the northern edge of Gaza City, saying that the area was a “dangerous combat zone.” It urged residents to evacuate their homes and head to safe areas in the south.

Palestinians transport their belongings as they flee areas north of Gaza City in the northern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2024. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)

The Hamas-run interior ministry, however, instructed civilians to ignore the call to relocate to other areas in the north of the Strip, and also to avoid heading south “where the occupation is conducting continued bombing and killing every day in the areas it claims to be safe.”

The terror organization further accused Israel of carrying out an intentional “massacre against the civilians” in Jabaliya as a way to punish them for refusing to leave their homes.

The IDF has for years accused Hamas of using human shields and embedding its operatives deep within the civilian population to protect itself amid fighting with Israel, and says that it seeks to avoid civilian casualties.

United Nations officials have also pushed back against the frequent evacuation orders as well, saying that there are no safe areas in all of Gaza.

Palestinians search for the bodies of their relatives killed in an Israeli strike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, Oct. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

On Friday, the international body voiced concerns that the fresh rounds of fighting and new evacuation orders in the north might affect the second phase of its polio vaccination campaign set to start next week.

The campaign is expected to begin on Monday in central Gaza Strip areas and last three days before moving to other areas in the war-torn territory.

Aid groups carried out an initial round of vaccinations last month after a baby was partially paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus in August, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.

As in the first phase, humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza are planned, in order to reach hundreds of thousands of children.

Palestinian medics administer polio vaccines to children at the al-Daraj neighborhood clinic in Gaza City on September 10, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (Omar Al-Qattaa/AFP)

The UN also voiced concerns on Saturday about the lack of resources available to civilians in northern Gaza, in light of the renewed fighting, and said that no food aid had entered the area since October 1.

The World Food Program said that the primary border crossing into the war-ravaged area had been closed for about two weeks, and warned that Israel’s ongoing ground operation has a disastrous impact on food security for thousands of Palestinian families there.

“The north is basically cut off and we’re not able to operate there,” said Antoine Renard, the WFP country director of Palestinian territories.

The UN’s independent investigator on the right to food accused Israel last month of carrying out a “starvation campaign” against Palestinians. Israel has denied such allegations and insisted that it has allowed food and other aid into Gaza in significant quantities.

“Israel has not halted the entry or coordination of humanitarian aid entering from its territory into the northern Gaza Strip,” COGAT, the Israeli military body overseeing aid distribution, said in a statement earlier this week. “As evidence, humanitarian aid coordinated by COGAT and international organizations will continue to enter the northern Gaza Strip in the coming day as well.”

Emanuel Fabian contributed to this report.

Most Popular
read more: