The US security envoy spoke with Israeli officials to discuss shifting strategy in Gaza to surgical operations against Hamas and abandoning a broad ground campaign as Palestinians reported heavy attacks on the enclave on Friday.
Israeli aircraft and artillery are intensifying strikes in northern Gaza, as well as Khan Younis and Rafah in the south of the enclave, residents, authorities and media reported.
Palestinian medical officials say an Israeli airstrike on a house in Khan Younis killed four people and wounded several others on Friday. Overnight Israeli airstrikes on Khan Younis and Rafah killed and injured dozens of people. One of the strikes hit a residential neighbourhood near the Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, Palestinian media outlet WAFA adds.
White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan discussed measures Thursday to shift Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip to less intensive operations targeting high-value targets during his visit to Israel, but it would be “irresponsible” to give a specific timeline for such a change, a senior administration official told reporters. One US official noted:
There was a discussion in these meetings and also in our prior meetings, and in calls between the President and the Prime Minister, on kind of a shift in emphasis from high-tempo clearance operations, high intensity clearance operations, which are ongoing now, to ultimately lower-intensity focus on high-value targets, intelligence driven raids, and those sorts of more narrow, surgical military objectives.
Israeli special forces said on Friday they had found the body of 28-year-old hostage Elia Toledano, who had been held by Hamas since 7 October after she was seized at an open-air music festival. The military said medical staff, military rabbis and forensic experts had carried out an “identification procedure”.
Israel has been launching regular strikes across the 25-mile (40-kilometre) territory of Gaza without agreeing to a new ceasefire that would allow more of the desperately needed essentials for civilians to survive as their homes are reduced to rubble.
Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in retaliation for Hamas attacks. On 7 October, militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took 240 hostages in a cross-border raid.
Israeli troops are keeping the coastal strip under total siege and have turned much of it into rubble. Palestinian health officials say some 19,000 people have been killed, with thousands more buried under rubble.
