by Israeli forces clashed with Hamas militants across the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the Israeli military said, deepening its engagement in the decimated enclave even as the Palestinian death toll from relentless airstrikes in 12 weeks of war soared.
Gaza’s Health Ministry reported Saturday that 165 people had been killed in Israeli air and artillery strikes in the previous 24 hours, adding to the toll of more than 20,000 people killed in Gaza since the war began with Hamas-led raids. on October 7 in Israel.
The Israeli military said late Friday that it had destroyed an apartment in Gaza City of the person it considers the mastermind of those attacks, Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who tops the Israeli military’s most wanted list in Loop.
The military said Sinwar used the apartment as a hideout and that he destroyed a tunnel discovered by his troops in the basement of the apartment, as well as an underground headquarters that served as a nerve center for senior officials in Hamas’ military and political wings.
He was not believed to be in the compound when it was attacked, as he had fled south when the Israeli campaign began.
As global outrage and impatience grows over the devastating human cost of war, the Biden administration said Friday night that it was bypassing Congress for the second time since the war began over an arms sale to Israel.
The State Department approved a proposed sale of artillery munitions and related equipment to Israel worth $147.5 million, invoking an emergency provision that avoids a congressional review process generally required for arms sales to others. nations, the Biden administration said. The department used the same provision this month to facilitate the government’s sale of about 13,000 rounds of tank ammunition to Israel.
The Pentagon said in a statement that Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had “provided detailed justification to Congress that an emergency exists requiring immediate sale” to Israel.
“The United States is committed to Israel’s security, and it is vital to American national interests to help Israel develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” the statement said, adding: “It is incumbent upon all countries.” use munitions compatible with international humanitarian law.”
Hamas said in a statement on Saturday that the US supply of ammunition to Israel was “clear proof of the full sponsorship of this criminal war by the US administration.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces increasing pressure from the United States and many other nations to de-escalate the conflict, but last week said Israel would “deepen” the fighting in the coming days.
In a televised news conference on Saturday, Netanyahu vowed again that Israel would not stop its campaign until it achieved victory and said the war would continue for “many more months.”
Israeli airstrikes and artillery hit central and southern Gaza on Saturday, hitting areas where Israel ordered hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians to gather for protection from the attack across the territory, according to Palestinian media.
Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, including several commanders, but has failed to locate Sinwar, whose killing or capture would be a significant blow to Hamas. Israel has offered $400,000 to anyone who can provide information leading to his arrest.
A founding member of Hamas in the 1980s, Sinwar spent decades in Israeli prisons after being arrested in 1988 and convicted of murdering four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.
Despite receiving a life sentence, he was released in 2011 as one of 1,026 Palestinians freed from Israeli prisons in exchange for the release of an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas had kidnapped five years earlier. Following his release, Mr. Sinwar pledged to secure the release of other Palestinians imprisoned in Israel.
The army statement on Friday described the underground headquarters connected to Mr. Sinwar’s apartment as part of a network of tunnels “in which senior officials of the Hamas terrorist organization moved and operated.”
The headquarters was described as being about 20 meters underground, which Israel said was deeper than other tunnels. The military said it had ventilation and electricity and was connected to sewer pipes. It led to a tunnel about 250 meters long that the military said contained rooms for prayer and rest, and equipped for extended hiding.
“The tunnel was built in such a way that it was possible to stay inside it and conduct combat from it for long periods of time,” the army statement said.
Hamas’s top leaders are believed to be sheltering in deep tunnels under Gaza along with most of the group’s fighters and the remaining hostages kidnapped in the October 7 attacks. Although the Israeli military says it has demolished at least 1,500 wells, experts believe the underground infrastructure is largely intact.
Israel’s search and destroy missions and its intense bombing have come at the cost of the deaths of thousands of women, children and other non-combatants.
Unverified video footage from local journalists in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where large numbers of displaced people have fled, showed the immediate aftermath of attacks on residential homes. In chaotic scenes on narrow, busy streets, people carried the wounded from the rubble, wrapped in blankets. Other wounded were carried by hand, while several men struggled to carry the limp body of a man.
Israeli airstrikes also hit parts of central Gaza that were under Israeli evacuation orders issued this week. According to the United Nations, more than 150,000 people are affected by those orders, although it was not clear how many have fled. The strikes forced some families who had already been uprooted numerous times to make even more difficult decisions about whether or not to move again.
An attack on a journalist’s home in the central Gaza city of Nuseirat killed him and several members of his family and wounded several others, according to Palestinian media.
More journalists have been killed in the 12 weeks of the Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country in an entire year, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which estimates that at least 69 journalists and media workers The media has been murdered since October. 7.
Matt Surman and Eduardo Wong contributed reports.
