Tel Aviv, 29 December 2023 (dpa/MIA) – Israeli units are "expanding" their operations in the area around the city of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) posted on the social media platform X on Friday, without providing details.

"The troops eliminated dozens of terrorists by means of air attacks, snipers and tank fire," it said, describing action during the course of Thursday. Dozens of Hamas members had been killed in various battles in the north of the Gaza Strip, the IDF reported on X.

Hamas leaders are thought to be hiding in Khan Younis, where the IDF is currently concentrating its forces. The IDF has instructed residents of the city to leave for Rafah to the south-west on the Egyptian border.

The IDF reported finding explosives in the homes of Hamas members. Buildings with explosives had been destroyed, it said. Troops also found a number of tunnels and weapons.

The IDF said its operations were aimed at securing control of an area on the outskirts of Khan Younis, from where an attack was mounted on October 7 on the Nir Oz kibbutz directly across the border.

The Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said 187 people had been killed in one day in fresh Israeli attacks. It added that 312 Palestinians had been injured. The figures took the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war to 21,507.

The number was last given on Thursday as 21,320. According to this information, 55,915 other people have been injured.

The figures cannot be confirmed, but the UN and other observers point out that the authority's figures have been credible in the past.

Four pedestrians were injured in a suspected car attack near a settlement in the West Bank on Friday, Israeli media and the Magen David Adom ambulance service reported.

Paramedics treated four people in their 20s. They were all conscious and one was in a "moderate condition," the ambulance service reported. Three others were slightly injured, it said. Israeli media reported that the victims were Israelis.

"Soldiers operating in the area neutralized the terrorist," the IDF said. According to the media, the driver was shot dead. There was initially no information on his identity.

The suspected car attack took place next to a military post near the Israeli settlement of Otniel in the south of the occupied West Bank, not far from the city of Hebron.

Israel took over the West Bank and East Jerusalem during the Six-Day War in 1967. Hundreds of thousands of settlers now live there in the midst of around 3 million Palestinians, who are demanding that the area become part of their own state.

The already tense situation in the West Bank has worsened significantly since the start of the Gaza war following the Hamas massacre of some 1,200 people in Israel on October 7, the worst massacre in Israel's history.

Photo: MIA archive