Israeli forces bombarded targets in the south, north and centre of Gaza on Monday ahead of an expected announcement by Hamas on the fate of three Israelis held hostage by the Palestinian militant group shown in a video clip at the weekend.

Twelve Palestinians were killed and others wounded in an Israeli airstrike overnight on a house in Gaza City in the north, health officials said, while plumes of smoke rose above the main southern city of Khan Younis shelled by Israeli tanks.

Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Press Agency SAFA reported fierce clashes between Hamas militants and Israeli forces in Khan Younis, while Israeli tank barrages were also reported near the Al-Bureij and Al-Maghazi refugee camps in central Gaza.

In the Al-Nusseirat refugee camp, local journalist Doaa El-Baz showed footage of what had once been the street where she lived.

“This whole neighbourhood is destroyed. Not a single house has been spared,” she said, standing before mounds of rubble.

Residents said communications across the narrow coastal Gaza Strip remained severed for a fourth consecutive day.

In a statement, the Israeli military said it had killed two Palestinian fighters in an airstrike on their vehicle as it was transporting weapons in Khan Younis, and also raided a Hamas command centre in that city and struck two arms caches.

The three hostages are among some 240 seized by Islamist Hamas militants during a surprise cross-border rampage into southern Israel on October 7.

That Hamas assault, in which Israel says more than 1,200 people were killed, prompted an aerial and ground blitz by Israeli forces that over 100 days since has turned much of Gaza into a wasteland and killed, health officials say, some 24,100 people and wounded nearly 61,000.

Health officials said 132 were killed in the past 24 hours, suggesting to Palestinians that there has been little let-up in the intensity of Israel’s offensive despite its announcement of a shift to a new, more targeted phase.

Israel’s military has said it will devote months of more targeted operations against the leaders and positions of Hamas in the south after an initial all-out offensive centred on clearing the heavily built-up northern end of the Strip.

United Nations agencies renewed their appeal on Monday for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza.

“We need unimpeded, safe access to deliver aid and a humanitarian ceasefire to prevent further death and suffering,” said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organisation (WHO), adding that hunger would further harm the sick and make “an already terrible situation catastrophic”.

Hamas aired a video on Sunday showing three Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza. It urged the Israeli government to halt its aerial and ground offensive and bring about their release.

The 37-second video of Noa Argamani, 26, Yossi Sharabi, 53, and Itai Svirsky, 38, ended with the caption: “Tomorrow (Monday), we will inform you of their fate.”

Around half of the 240 hostages taken by Hamas in its October 7 incursion into southern Israel were released during a short-lived November truce. Still, Israel says 132 remain in Gaza and that 25 have died in captivity.

(Reuters/NAN)