Israel has Started a New Military Operation in Central Gaza

Picture courtesy: (Reuters) Palestinians running away from Bureij refugee camp.

(The Post News)- The Israeli military announced that it has started a new ground operation against Hamas in the Bureij refugee camp and east of the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

On Wednesday, June 5, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that their new targeted operation in Bureij and eastern Deir al-Balah was directed at destroying terrorist infrastructure that was located kilometres away from the border.

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) statement, soldiers backed by air strikes were aiming at the terrorists and terrorist infrastructure above and below ground.

The charity Médecins Sans Frontières announced that at least 70 people lost their lives, while 300 were injured, most of them women and children and had been taken to a hospital in Deir al-Balah since Tuesday, June 4.

Bureij is considered to be one of the lowest of Gaza’s eight historic refugee camps. It consists of an area of 0.5 sq km (0.2 sq miles), which includes 46,000,000 residents registered with the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) before the war outbreak.

The camp is located to the south of the Wadi Gaza riverbed, which also falls under the IDF’s Central Gaza Strip Corridor and a section controlled by Israeli forces that goes from east to west from the border with Israel to the Mediterranean Sea, dividing Gaza in two.

The operation comes while US, Egyptian, and Qatari negotiators meet in Doha and Cairo to try to come up with a new ceasefire and hostage release proposal.

The US argued that on Tuesday it was still waiting for feedback from Hamas on what it outlined as an Israeli proposal structure by US President Joe Biden last week.

Qatar stated that it had provided a plan to Hamas representatives and noted that it was also still waiting for the Israeli government’s clear position.

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh argued on Wednesday that the group would deal seriously and positively with a proposal for an end to the war, which also includes full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Israel’s prime minister has stood firm in his decision that he will not come to terms with a permanent ceasefire until Hamas is defeated and the hostages are set free.

On Wednesday, June 5, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared that all negotiations with Hamas would continue under fire.

Israel started a military campaign in Gaza to finish Hamas’ cross-border attack on southern Israel on October 7 2023, which resulted in 1,200 people dead and 251 others being taken hostage.

According to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry, 36,580 people have lost their lives since the start of the war in Gaza. With the killings still going on, the number is expected to increase.

Despite the effort to stop Israeli attacks on Gaza and focus on the ceasefire negotiations, on Thursday, June 6, Israel launched an airstrike on a UN school, resulting in hundreds of displaced people in central Gaza, the residents said.

The Israeli military states that it carried out a strike on a UN school that housed a Hamas compound warplane, attacking the classrooms on the top floor of the school in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

The Hamas media office announced that at least 27 people lost their lives, blaming Israel for causing a horrific massacre.