FLASH
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US officials, meanwhile, continue to press Israel to protect civilian lives in Gaza as fighting intensifies.
French President Emmanuel Macron is staying in Qatar to try to broker another ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. US officials, meanwhile, continue to press Israel to protect civilian lives in Gaza as fighting intensifies.
The Israeli army has moved the offensive to the south of the region, where it says many Hamas leaders are hiding.
Today the army ordered the evacuation of more areas in and around Gaza's second largest city, Khan Younis.
Heavy shelling was reported overnight and on Sunday in the city of Khan Younis as well as in northern Gaza, where the fiercest fighting has so far taken place.
Many of the territory's 2.3 million residents have flocked to the south, after Israeli forces ordered civilians to leave the north in the early days of the war.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin made his strongest remarks yet on the need for Israel to protect civilians in Gaza.
"In this kind of war, the civilian population is the center of gravity. If you push civilians into the enemy's arms you end up replacing a tactical victory with a strategic defeat. I have made clear to Israel's leaders repeatedly that protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is a moral responsibility and a strategic priority," Secretary Austin said Saturday while addressing the Reagan National Security Forum in California.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to repeated US calls to be careful with civilians by saying his country has no desire to harm civilians.
On Sunday, the Israeli military extended evacuation orders in and around the city of Khan Younis, asking residents of at least five other areas and neighborhoods to leave for their own safety.
Residents said the Israeli army dropped posters ordering them to move south to Rafah or a coastal area in the southwest. "Khan Younis city is a dangerous war zone," the poster said.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, however, made it clear what Israel's goal is as the war continues.
"To complete the sacred mission of returning all hostages, eliminating Hamas, and ensuring that Gaza never again has an entity that educates its children for terrorism and calls for the destruction of Israel, we continue to we fight with all our strength. This is what our fighters were preparing for during the ceasefire, for a complete victory over Hamas," says Prime Minister Netanyahu.
The fighting has intensified. Hamas's military wing, the Al Qassem Brigades, issued a statement announcing that it had bombarded Tel Aviv with a barrage of rockets in response to Israeli attacks.
In the hospital of the city of Khan Younis in Gaza, a multitude of bloody wounded, victims of the Israeli bombings, have been sent.
On Sunday Israeli forces released footage of what they say are 800 tunnel entrances leading to Hamas' vast underground network of bunkers. Israel says many of them were in civilian areas such as under schools, mosques, gardens and playgrounds and has destroyed more than half of them.
Before the war began, Hamas claimed to have built hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, a network so vast it could be compared in size to the New York subway system. Hamas says it built the tunnels to serve as a base of operations.
Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to end the war have continued. French President Emmanuel Macron is staying in Qatar.
He met with the Emir of Qatar, Al Thani, with whom he discussed ongoing efforts to reach another ceasefire.
Unofficially, a team from the Israeli intelligence service Mossad returned to Qatar on Saturday to continue talks on reaching a new pause in the fighting.
The Qatari-brokered talks focused on the possible release of new categories of Israeli hostages, other than women and children, and the parameters of a cease-fire, which according to an anonymous source who spoke to Reuters news agency differed from the cease-fire agreement that ended on Friday.
The sides have accused each other of ending a cease-fire with Israel, which says Hamas refused to release all the women it was holding, while a Palestinian official said tensions rose because Hamas refused to release female members of the Israeli army taken hostage on October 7.
During the October 7 terrorist attack, Hamas killed 1,200 people and took another 240 hostage. Hamas data says that over 15,000 Palestinians have been killed during the fighting that followed the October 7 attack./ VOA
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