Jerusalem — Fighting in Gaza raged for a 24th day on Monday after Hamas militants launched an October 7 attack on Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.
Since then, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says 8,306 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s relentless bombardment, 3,457 of them children as the tiny territory faces a spiralling humanitarian crisis.
Israel has also sent in ground forces and tanks as it presses its mission to destroy Hamas.
Here are key developments from the past 24 hours:
Israeli tanks breach Gaza City
Israeli tanks briefly entered the southern outskirts of Gaza City on Monday, witnesses told AFP saying they had cut the main north-south Gaza highway.
“Dozens” of tanks entered the Zaytun district for over an hour, witnesses told AFP, saying they were “firing at any vehicle” driving along the main Salahedin Road. Warplanes also bombed the road, leaving large craters in it.
The army said it had hit “more than 600 targets in the past 24 hours”, up from 450 the previous day, and killed “dozens” of militants. Hamas also reported “heavy fighting” in northern Gaza.
Hamas releases ‘hostage video’
Hamas on Monday released a video it said showed three women from the hostages it seized on October 7, whom Israel says number around 239.
In the video, one of the women becomes very agitated and starts shouting and making agitated hand gestures as she demands Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree to a prisoner exchange.
It was not immediately possible to verify the women’s identity.
German-Israeli woman abducted by Hamas confirmed dead
Shani Louk, a 23-year-old German-Israeli woman abducted by Hamas fighters when they stormed a music festival in the Israeli desert, is dead, Israel’s foreign ministry said Monday.
“Our hearts are broken,” the ministry wrote in a message on X, formerly Twitter, as it confirmed Louk’s death.
Israel army says female soldier hostage freed from Gaza
A female Israeli soldier was released from captivity in the Gaza Strip, the army said Monday, following an operation in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
“Last night, soldier Ori Megidish was released during a ground operation after being kidnapped by Hamas on October 7,” the army said in a statement.
“The soldier was medically checked, is doing well, and has met with her family.”
Strikes in Syria, Lebanon
Israel’s military said on Monday it hit Syrian military infrastructure in response to rockets launched from there, and there were further escalations along the Israel-Lebanon border.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah claimed it had downed an Israeli drone and Hamas militants there said they had fired rockets at Israel, whose army said it had returned fire.
Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister Najib Mikati told AFP on Monday he was working to ensure his country would not enter the war, saying he feared “chaos could engulf the entire Middle East” and that he could not rule out an escalation.
33 more aid trucks arrive
Another 33 aid trucks entered Gaza from Egypt, in what the UN said was “the largest delivery of humanitarian aid” since October 21, when limited deliveries resumed. So far, none has carried any critically needed fuel.
Until now, 117 aid trucks have entered Gaza under a US-brokered deal, compared with an average of 500 trucks a day before the conflict according to UN figures.
Unrest in West Bank, Jerusalem
A knife-wielding Palestinian seriously injured an Israeli policeman in annexed east Jerusalem on Monday before being shot dead by border police, officials said.
Five other Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank, four of them in an Israeli raid in the northern city of Jenin, and a fifth in Yatta near Hebron in the south, the health ministry said.
A sixth died of injuries sustained last week when he was shot by a Jewish settler near Ramallah.
Since the Gaza war began, Palestinian health officials say more than 120 West Bank residents have been killed in army raids and settler attacks.