Israel hits south Gaza as top US diplomat seeks de-escalation

Israel hit targets in south Gaza and across its border with Lebanon, the army said Monday ahead of a visit by the top US diplomat who is seeking to avert a wider war.

Gaza’s health ministry said 73 dead and 99 wounded had arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah city over the previous 24 hours.

Three months into its battle with Gaza-based Hamas militants, Israel’s army says its focus has moved from the northern Gaza Strip in the centre and south of the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.

In the southern city of Khan Yunis, troops and warplanes overnight Sunday-Monday struck 30 targets. These included underground targets and weapons storage facilities, military said.

Also overnight, the military said it had hit “numerous Hezbollah targets” in Lebanon.

Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally, have engaged in regular cross-border fire during the war that began an October 7 with Hamas’s unprecedented attack against Israel.

But a strike last week in a Beirut stronghold of Hezbollah has been a major factor contributing to rising fears of spreading conflict. A US Defense Department official has told AFP that Israel carried out the strike that killed Hamas’s deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri.