Israel expands ground offensive in Gaza

GAZA STRIP — Israel has moved ground forces into the south of Gaza in its conflict with Hamas on Monday, as international concerns deepened over the mounting civilian death toll in the besieged enclave.

Dozens of Israeli tanks as well as armored personnel carriers and bulldozers entered the south of the territory near the city of Khan Younis, which is crowded with internally displaced Palestinians, witnesses said.

The return to open warfare after a truce between Israel and Hamas broke down has had ripple effects around a region on the cusp of a wider conflagration.

On Monday, the commander of Israel's armored corps said that his and other ground forces were close to achieving their mission in the northern Gaza Strip and were operating elsewhere in the enclave.

"The goals in the northern section have almost been met," Brigadier-General Hisham Ibrahim told Israel's Army Radio. "We are beginning to expand the ground maneuver to other parts of the Strip."

Since the expiry of the truce on Friday, fighting in Gaza has resumed between Hamas and advancing Israeli troops, as have militants' rocket launches toward Israel and Israel's airstrikes on the Palestinian territory.

Israel has vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation to the group's Oct 7 attacks that killed around 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

An estimated 240 others, among them young children and elderly people, were taken hostage into Gaza during the attacks.

Hamas said 15,523 people have been killed in the territory since Oct 7, more than half of them women and children.

Under a truce mediated by Qatar with support from Egypt and the United States, 80 Israeli hostages were freed, in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.

However, fighting resumed between the two sides on Friday despite international calls for an extension.

The next day, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said Israeli negotiators were being withdrawn from Qatar "following the impasse in the negotiations" aimed at renewing the truce.

With 137 hostages still held in Gaza, according to the Israeli military, Hamas has ruled out more releases until a permanent ceasefire is agreed.

The Palestinian health ministry said on Sunday that 316 had been killed since the end of the truce. Israel says five of its soldiers have died in combat since then, three of them on Sunday.

Anger from Erdogan

The mounting death toll in Gaza has sparked growing international concern over Israel's bombardments.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that Netanyahu would eventually be tried as a war criminal over Israel's ongoing offensive, while slamming Western countries supporting Israel.

With fears of a wider regional conflagration rising, a US destroyer shot down multiple drones over the Red Sea while assisting commercial ships in the Red Sea on Sunday, according to the US Central Command.

In Iraq, an airstrike killed at least five militants on Sunday, according to Iraqi security sources, a day after Baghdad warned Washington against "attacks" on its territory.

Agencies via Xinhua