Israeli forces fought Hamas terrorists in southern Gaza as the conflict continued to escalate Saturday.
Hamas compounds and anti-tank launch positions were among 120 Gaza Strip targets hit during the course of the day, the Times of Israel reported.
In what the Israel Defense Forces called a “targeted raid” in southern Gaza – one of the first skirmishes in that part of the enclave – members of a Hamas cell emerged from a tunnel to attack tanks and combat engineers of the Gaza Division, who had arrived to map buildings and clear planted explosives.
The IDF shelled the fighters and killed an unknown number of them, the military said.
In other developments:
In northern Gaza on Saturday, infantry and tanks encountered multiple groups of Hamas operatives who popped out of tunnels to strike Israeli troops. In one incident, the IDF said, forces on the ground fought off a group of 15 terrorists, killing several of them while shelling their observation posts.
Hamas claimed to have clashed with Israeli troops in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City — a sign that the IDF has already advanced well into the densely populated heart of Gaza, apparently in an effort to push all remaining civilians out and toward the south, according to the BBC.
But two Israeli airstrikes landed outside a United Nations school in Gaza City that had been turned into a shelter, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees reported, killing several civilians.
Meanwhile, the US Embassy in Lebanon issued a security alert urging Americans to leave the country as the IDF released dramatic footage showing Israeli warplanes striking Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in response to a projectile fired from Lebanese territory earlier in the day.
“Among the targets that were attacked, terrorist infrastructures, rocket warehouses, and compounds used by the organization,” the IDF wrote in a post on X.
On Friday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah threatened to escalate his terror group’s involvement in the war — but said it was “already doing its part” by drawing Israeli forces north to the border with Lebanon.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant responded Saturday, warning Nasrallah not to “make a mistake.”
“We are not interested in getting into a war in the north, but we are ready for any task,” Gallant said. “If Nasrallah makes a mistake, he will seal the fate of Lebanon.”