RAFAH, Gaza Strip—Palestinian terrorists attacked Israeli forces in a thick Gaza City neighborhood, killing at least nine of them, according to media reports Wednesday, as Hamas resisted Israel's airstrikes for more than nine weeks.
Since Hamas's Oct. 7 strike that launched the conflict, the air and ground onslaught has killed nearly 18,400 Palestinians, predominantly civilians. Nearly 85 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced to evacuate their homes, and much of the territory's north resembles a lunar landscape.
U.S. President Joe Biden's administration has frequently urged Israel to take more precautions to protect Palestinian civilians.
Ground forces are still engaged in intense fighting with Palestinian rebels in and around Gaza City, more than six weeks after Israeli troops entered Gaza's north. Clashes continued in numerous neighborhoods overnight and into Wednesday, with particularly violent fighting in Shijaiyah, a congested neighborhood that was the site of a significant battle during Israel's 2014 conflict with Hamas.
According to Army Radio, troops examining a cluster of buildings in Shijaiyah on Tuesday lost contact with four soldiers who had come under fire, raising suspicions of an abduction. When the other troops attempted to rescue them, they were met with heavy gunfire and explosives.
Col. Itzhak Ben Basat, 44, the most senior officer slain in the ground operation, and Lt. Col. Tomer Grinberg, a battalion commander, were among the nine killed.
The military verified the killings but did not reply to any questions. Several Israeli media sites reported on the conflict in a similar manner.
Heavy rains overnight flooded tent camps in Gaza's south, where Israel has advised residents to take safety.
Israeli airstrikes targeted two residential structures in the southern province of Khan Younis overnight, where Israeli ground forces opened a fresh line of attack earlier this month.
President Biden claimed on Tuesday that he reminded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that Israel was losing international support due to its "indiscriminate bombing" and that he should reform his coalition, which is purportedly dominated by hard-right parties.
However, the attack is being led by a war cabinet that includes two politically moderate former generals and enjoys widespread backing from Israelis across the political spectrum.
In Israel, attention is still focused on the horrors committed on October 7, when over 1,200 people were slain, largely civilians, and 240 people were kidnapped, with almost half of them still held prisoner.
According to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, over 18,400 Palestinians have been murdered. The Ministry of Defense makes no distinction between civilian and combatant casualties.
The United States intends to restart the peace process, which stalled more than a decade ago. It wishes for the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs sections of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to also manage Gaza, which Hamas took over in 2007.
However, PA President Mahmoud Abbas is immensely unpopular, and he has ruled out any return to Gaza unless the war is resolved in a way that produces a Palestinian state.
