Gaza officials reveal 70 percent of Palestinians killed by Israel are women, children

Hebrew media recently reported a ‘worrying’ reconstitution of Hamas’ fighting capabilities in north Gaza, including the recruitment of thousands of new fighters

News Desk - The Cradle

Israeli troops carried out heavy attacks on Gaza City’s Al-Zaytoun neighborhood on 5 September, which marked the 335th day of Tel Aviv’s brutal war on the strip. 

The neighborhood was hit with “insane” artillery shelling as troops moved through the area, Al Mayadeen’s correspondent reported. This week, Israeli forces launched their seventh incursion into Al-Zaytoun.

The Israeli army targeted the vicinity of the Martyrs of Zaytoun school, where three Palestinians were killed and several others injured. It opened fire at the university southwest of Gaza City and bombed a house in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood. 

Army vehicles also opened fire toward the Shujaiya neighborhood.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement’s Quds Brigades released footage on 3 September of a sniping operation targeting Israeli soldiers in the Zaytoun neighborhood.

Al-Zaytoun neighborhood is one of the areas where Israeli troops have faced some of the stiffest resistance since launching the ground war in Gaza in late October, reentering it several times but failing to root out the resistance. 

After one such round of fighting in late February, Israeli forces withdrew from the neighborhood under heavy fire from the resistance and after taking many losses. Troops were also forced out of Al-Zaytoun in mid-May.

The Israeli army claimed in January that Hamas had been dismantled in northern Gaza. Yet the months that followed saw Israeli forces take losses in successive battles in several areas of the north, including the Jabalia camp and the Shujaiya and Al-Zaytoun neighborhoods.

The new operation in Al-Zaytoun came three days after Hebrew news outlet Channel 13 reported that Hamas has “rebuilt its capabilities” in the northern Gaza Strip and has “recruited 3,000 new militants” nearly 11 months into the war.

“The latest information paints a worrying picture,” it said.

As a result, security officials believe there “will be no escape from a renewed and massive entry of IDF forces into northern Gaza.”

Last month, a joint study by the Critical Threats Project (CTP) and the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) revealed that, after 10 months of war, the Israeli army has defeated three of the 24 reported battalions of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades.