Israel is intensifying its bombardment of Gaza despite growing international opposition, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday.
“The war is exacting a very heavy cost from us,” he told his cabinet during a weekly meeting. “However, we have no choice but to continue to fight.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reportedly lost 15 soldiers in Gaza over the weekend, with all but one of the deaths taking place on Friday and Saturday.
Israel hit 200 targets in a single 24-hour period during the same weekend, military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters on Saturday. Just one of those strikes, targeting Gaza City, killed 90 Palestinians, including 76 members of a single extended family – making it one of the deadliest strikes in what has already proven to be an unusually destructive bombing campaign. Israeli forces have been aided by a controversial AI targeting program whose critics have deemed it a “mass assassination factory.”
The IDF has stepped up fighting in the north, where Gaza City and environs have been largely flattened after West Jerusalem issued a controversial evacuation order, itself decried as a war crime by UN human rights experts. Israel's assault has also targeted the south of Gaza, in particular a “dense area” in the southern city of Khan Younis, Hagari explained. Another Israeli division is focused on destroying Hamas’ much-hyped underground tunnel network, he said.
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