DEIR-AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Local health officials said Israeli strikes killed at least 85 Palestinians across he Gaza Strip overnight and into Thursday, bringing the total to nearly 600 killed since Israel shattered a truce that had facilitated the release of more than two dozen hostages and brought relative calm since late January.
Hours later, Hamas fired three rockets at Israel without causing casualties, in the first such attack since Israel broke the ceasefire on Tuesday.
Zaher al-Waheidi, the head of the records department at the Gaza Health Ministry, said Israeli bombardments have killed at least 592 people in the past three days.
The Israeli military said it was again enforcing a blockade on northern Gaza, including Gaza City. Palestinians were not being ordered to leave northern Gaza but can no longer enter, the military said, and are only allowed to move south on foot using the coastal road. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians had returned to what remains of their homes in the north during the ceasefire.
Early Friday, Israel’s Cabinet unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to fire the head of the country’s Shin Bet internal security service. The late-night decision to sack Ronen Bar deepens a power struggle focused largely over who bears responsibility for the Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza.
It also could set the stage for a crisis over the country’s division of powers. Israel’s attorney general has ruled that the Cabinet has no legal basis to dismiss Bar.
Israeli ground forces, meanwhile, are pushing into Gaza near the northern town of Beit Lahiya and the southern border city of Rafah, the military said Thursday. The operations come a day after Israel moved to split Gaza in two by retaking part of the strategic Netzarim corridor that divides Gaza’s north from south.
The military ordered Palestinians to evacuate an area in central Gaza near the city of Khan Younis, saying it would operate there in response to Thursday’s rocket fire from Hamas. The Palestinian militant group said it targeted Tel Aviv. One rocket was intercepted and two fell in open areas, according to the army.
