Fighter jets struck launching sites in the Khan Yunis area and the outskirts of Deir al-Balah on Sunday, the IDF said. Rockets were launched from these locations on Friday towards the Nirim area.
Throughout the day, sirens sounded in the South, including in Nir Oz. The 10-month-long war in Gaza continued in the shadow of a pursued hostage and ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, mediated by the US, Qatar, and Egypt.
The military said on Sunday that a soldier from the 202 Battalion, Paratroopers Brigade, was severely injured during combat in the southern Gaza Strip. The soldier was evacuated to the hospital for medical treatment.
Relatives gathered around the bodies of a mother and her six children, wrapped in white shrouds bearing their names, at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. The youngest was aged 18 months, their grandfather Mohammed Khattab told Reuters at the funeral.
“What was their crime? … Did they kill a Jew? Did they shoot at the Jews? Did they launch rockets at the Jews? Did they destroy the State of Israel? What did they do? What did they do to deserve this?” asked Khattab.
“We are tired of displacement. People are being pushed into narrow areas in Deir Al-Balah and Al-Mawasi, which have become pressure cookers,” Tamer Al-Burai, who lives in Deir Al-Balah with several relatives, told Reuters via a chat app. Tanks were just 1.5 km (0.9 miles) away, Burai added.
On Friday, the military ordered the evacuation of areas north of Khan Yunis and east of Deir Al-Balah, where hundreds of thousands of people displaced by earlier fighting had been sheltering in dire conditions.
According to the Deir Al-Balah municipality, which estimates the city’s population at 1 million, the evacuation orders resulted in more people crammed into a smaller area.
Troops operated in Khan Yunis and Rafah as well, killing terrorists and seizing weapons.
UNIFIL says three peacekeepers 'lightly injured'
Sirens sounded throughout the day in border towns in the North. A spokesperson for UNIFIL said on Sunday that three peacekeepers on patrol were “lightly injured” when an explosion occurred near their clearly marked UN vehicle in the village of Yarine in southern Lebanon.
“All peacekeepers in the patrol returned safely to their base,” the spokesperson said, without giving further details of the nature of the explosion. “We are looking into the incident. We are strongly reminding all parties and actors of their responsibility to avoid harm to peacekeepers and civilians.”
The IDF said it struck a Hezbollah terrorist cell in the Shebaa area in southern Lebanon. In another attack in the same area, fighter jets struck and destroyed a weapons storage facility. Another storage facility and a military base were struck in the areas of Matmoura and at-Tiri.