CAIRO/GAZA/JERUSALEM - Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on Jan 4 outlined a new stage of Israel’s war in Gaza: a more targeted approach in the north and further pursuit of Hamas leaders in the south while Israel seeks to free remaining hostages held by Hamas.

Under international pressure to shift to less intense combat operations and in the face of economic challenges, Israel has been drawing down its forces in Gaza to allow thousands of reservists to return to their jobs.

Mr Gallant said in a statement that operations in the north would include raids, demolishing tunnels, air and ground strikes, and special forces operations.

In the south, where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population now live in tents and other temporary shelters, the focus would be on wiping out Hamas leaders and rescuing some 130 Israeli hostages remaining of some 240 abducted on Oct 7.

After the war Hamas would no longer control Gaza, Mr Gallant said, adding that the enclave would be run by Palestinian bodies so long as there was no threat to Israel.

Aiming to help prevent the conflict from expanding, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to travel on Jan 4 to the Middle East for a week of diplomacy, the State Department said.

Earlier on Jan 4, Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip killed more than 20 Palestinians, including 16 in Khan Younis in a southern coastal area packed with people who had fled from other parts of the enclave, Gaza health officials said.

Among the dead were nine children, they said. Separately five Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a car in Al-Nusseirat refugee camp, health officials told Reuters. Gaza residents said Israeli planes and tanks had also bombarded two other refugee camps, prompting many to head south.

Israel’s war against Hamas is nearing the three-month mark amid international concern that the conflict is spreading beyond Gaza, drawing in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Hezbollah forces on the Lebanon-Israel border, and Red Sea shipping lanes.

The concern grew after a drone strike on Jan 2 killed Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in Lebanon’s capital Beirut. He was buried in the Palestinian camp of Shatila in the city on Jan 4, amid throngs of mourners launching volleys of gunfire.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah vowed on Jan 3 that his powerful Iran-backed Shi’ite militia “cannot be silent” following the killing, but he made no concrete threats to act against Israel in support of Hamas.

Hezbollah has been embroiled in nearly daily exchanges of shelling with Israel across Lebanon’s southern border since the Gaza war began.

Israel neither confirmed nor denied assassinating Arouri. It has promised to annihilate Hamas following the Islamist group’s assault in southern Israel on Oct 7 in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed.

Israel’s ground and air blitz has laid waste to Gaza. The total recorded Palestinian death toll had reached 22,438 by Thursday - almost 1 per cent of its 2.3 million population, the Gaza health ministry said.

Israel has said it has killed 8,000 fighters in Gaza.

Adding to the violence in the region, two explosions on Jan 3 killed nearly 100 people during a memorial ceremony for the late Iranian General Qasem Soleimani at the cemetery in southeastern Iran where he is buried.

The militant Sunni Muslim group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria claimed responsibility.

Gaza bloodshed

In Jan 4’s reported strike in Al-Mawasi on the western side of Khan Younis, Israeli shells landed near tents erected in the area by displaced people, health ministry officials said.

Footage on Palestinian media showed several bodies wrapped in blankets inside a hospital morgue in Khan Younis.

“Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Wherever you go, there are strikes. In the country, next to the camps, in Al-Mawasi. There is no safe space,” said Bahaa Abu Hatab, the brother of one of the dead.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its headquarters in Khan Younis was hit, killing one person and wounding others.

In its daily briefing, the Israeli military said Israeli warplanes killed three Hamas militants who had tried to detonate explosive next to ground troops, and Israeli soldiers killed two more.

Later, the military said soldiers had destroyed an underground military compound on the Gaza Strip coast with a weapons cache including mortars, grenades, and RPG missiles.

Mud adds to misery

Israeli bombardments have flattened much of the densely populated enclave and created a humanitarian disaster. Most Gazans have been left homeless, with food shortages threatening famine.

On Jan 4, people poured out of Al-Bureij, Al-Maghazi and Al-Nusseirat refugee camps following attacks, with some families riding on donkey carts loaded with mattresses, luggage and children. Rain has turned earth to mud, adding to the misery.

Over the course of the war, the Israeli military has expressed regret for civilian deaths but it accuses Hamas of operating in densely populated areas and using civilians as human shields, a charge the group denies. REUTERS