Israel pounds central Gaza, sends tanks into north of Rafah

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) -Israeli forces hit areas in the central Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing at least nine Palestinians, according to health officials, while Israeli tanks carried out a limited advance further into Rafah in the south.

Over the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed at least 81 Palestinians and wounded 198, the Gaza health ministry said. The ministry does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its casualty count.

In one Israeli air strike around midnight on a house in Al-Zawyda in the central Gaza Strip, eight people were killed, the health officials said.

In Rafah, where medics said two people were killed in an airstrike, tanks carried out a raid in the north of the city before pulling back, a tactic Israeli forces have used in other areas before mounting deeper incursions.

The Israeli military said troops were "continuing precise, intelligence-based operational activity in the Rafah area". It said they had eliminated what it called a terrorist cell and a launcher that had been used to fire at troops.

It said airstrikes had struck 25 targets throughout the Gaza Strip during the past day and that troops were continuing to operate in the central area, in part to dismantle structures used to observe the soldiers.

Nine months into the war, Palestinian fighters led by the Islamist Hamas group are still able to attack Israeli forces with anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs, occasionally firing barrages of rockets into Israel.

Israel's defence minister said that the military had made significant gains and the pressure was working.

"Operations in Gaza have led to the conditions necessary to achieve an agreement for the return of hostages," Defense Minister Gallant said in an overnight call with his U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin.

Israel vowed to eradicate Hamas after its militants killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage in an attack on Oct. 7, according to Israeli tallies.

On Tuesday, the military said it had eliminated half of the leadership of Hamas' military wing and killed or captured about 14,000 fighters since the start of the war, around half the fighting force estimated by the Israeli military.

At least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's retaliatory offensive since then, Gaza health authorities say. Israel says 326 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza.

MEDIATION EFFORTS STALLED

Diplomatic efforts by Arab mediators to halt the hostilities, backed by the United States, appear on hold, though all sides say they are open to more talks, including Israel and Hamas.

A deal would aim to end the war and release Israeli hostages in Gaza in return for many Palestinians jailed by Israel.

On Wednesday, Israel released 13 Palestinians detained during the offensive in Gaza, the Palestinian Red Crescent said in a statement.

Many of the hundreds of Palestinians Israel has released in the past months have accused Israeli forces of ill-treatment and torture. The Palestinian Prisoner Association said nearly 20 Palestinians had died in Israeli detention. Israel denies allegations of torture.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch, which has repeatedly accused Israel's military of war crimes during its campaign in Gaza, issued a 252-page report on Wednesday on the Oct. 7 attack, accusing Hamas' military wing, the Qassam Brigades, and at least four other Palestinian armed groups of committing "numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity" during the assault.

These included "deliberate and indiscriminate attacks" against civilians, inhumane treatment and wilful killing of captives, sexual and gender-based violence, hostage taking, mutilation of bodies, use of human shields and looting.

The findings, based on interviews with survivors, rescue workers and others, echo other accounts and largely match those of a UN inquiry last month, which concluded that both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes in the early stages of the Gaza war.

Hamas rejected the report as containing "lies and blatant bias" and demanded Human Rights Watch withdraw it and apologise.

"The Human Rights Watch report adopted the entire Israeli narrative," Hamas said in a statement.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Alison Williams and Tomasz Janowski)