Gaza: The Israeli military said it had taken control of the area surrounding the former headquarters of Hamas in Gaza City, and that its forces were engaged in intense battles in three areas of the Gaza Strip where it said the group still had “strongholds”, including in the south, where the UN has warned of an increasingly perilous humanitarian situation.
The Israeli military now controls the area in Gaza City surrounding Palestine Square, home to municipal offices and the headquarters for Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in the enclave, spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said. Israeli forces are now focused, he said, on fighting in three areas: Jabaliya and Shajaiye, two neighbourhoods in northern Gaza, and in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza.
Israel has yet to find Sinwar, whom they believe is hiding in southern Gaza. Admiral Hagari said that capturing or killing him is still a goal of the war, which has entered its third month. The director of Israel’s national security council, Tzahi Hanegbi, has rejected the idea that the lives of Sinwar and other top Hamas leaders could be spared if they went into exile outside Gaza - as Yasir Arafat, the leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization, did in 1982 during a war between Israel and Lebanon. The ongoing war is the bloodiest-ever Gaza conflict which has killed 101 Israeli soldiers and about 18,205 Palestinians, according to latest death tolls issued by respective officials, amid a spiralling humanitarian crisis.