With Isreal’s military concentrating on Hezbollah in Lebanon?
It has turned to its own affiliated militia’s to wage a fight of control in Gaza, while it still makes limited air attacks there….
Trump’s dream’s about the place ARE on the shelf…..
Pro-Israel Palestinian militia have launched repeated raids, clandestine assassination and abduction operations deep inside parts of Gaza controlled by Hamas in recent months, with new operations launched recently despite the outbreak of conflict with Iran.
The militia, which are all based in eastern parts of Gaza that are under Israeli control after a ceasefire came into effect in October, have received significant logistic support from Israel since last year but appear to have increased their firepower, allowing new and more aggressive attacks in recent weeks.
Israeli strikes in Gaza, which had averaged around 10 a day across the devastated territory over the last five months, have continued even as Israeli jets carry out bombing campaigns in Iran and Lebanon.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike and tank shelling killed six Palestinians, including two women and a girl, in separate attacks in Gaza City, the deadliest incidents in Gaza since the US-Israeli offensive on Iran began, health officials said. At least 16 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza by airstrikes since the outbreak of war with Iran on 28 February, health officials say.
The most powerful among the Israeli-backed militia are the Popular Forces, based around the ruins of Rafah in the south of Gaza, and the Strike ForceAgainst Terror, which operates east of the shattered city of Khan Younis. Both have struck into Hamas-controlled territory in recent weeks.
Israel has tasked the militia with security duties within the zone it controls and deployed armed men from the Popular Forces at the Rafah crossing to Egypt after it partially opened last month. Days later, the UN human rights office (OHCHR) warned of “a pattern of ill-treatment, abuse and humiliation of returnees by Israeli forces and armed Palestinians allegedly backed by the Israeli military”.
A third pro-Israeli militia based in northern Gaza, known as the Ashraf al-Mansi group, sent fighters across the “yellow line”, which currently divides zones of control in Gaza, last week, on what appears to have been a mission to ambush Hamas patrols and possibly assassinate senior Hamas figures. Officials from Hamas said it had foiled the attempt amid fighting in the Nasser neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Two weeks ago, the same militia clashed with Hamas fighters in Jabaliya, on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City, which is also within the Hamas-controlled zone.
“The militia are recruiting and becoming more active against Hamas, especially in Rafah … They seem to be getting more leverage. The Popular Forces, particularly now, [have] more capabilities and are more experienced,” said Nasser Khdour of Acled, an independent conflict monitor.
“Hamas is launching a counteroffensive, and is trying to focus on borders and positions where the militias are based. That is one reason why the violence has gone up,” Khdour said.
The enhanced role of the militias is a further challenge for plans for an international stabilisation force in Gaza.
The US-brokered Gaza ceasefire, which aims to demilitarise the territory, formally entered its second phase in January, but progress had stalled even before the joint US-Israeli offensive against Iran, and the spiralling conflict it has triggered….
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