GAZA: The Zionist entity bombed war-battered Gaza on Monday as world leaders awaited the Zionist entity’s reaction but urged de-escalation after Iran’s unprecedented attack that heightened fears of wider conflict. World powers have called for restraint after Iran launched more than 300 drones and missiles at the Zionist entity late Saturday, though the Zionist military claimed nearly all were intercepted.

Tehran’s first direct assault on the Zionist entity, in retaliation for a deadly April 1 strike on its Damascus embassy consular annex, followed months of violence across the region involving Iranian proxies and allies who act in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has warned that a “reckless” Zionist move would spark a “much stronger response”.

Tehran has insisted the attack on the Zionist entity was an act of “self-defense” after the Damascus strike that killed seven Revolutionary Guards including two generals. Attention has also turned to the Zionist entity’s top ally, the United States, which played a key role in shooting down the Iranian drones.

While US President Joe Biden has been increasingly critical of the civilian death toll in Gaza, after the Iran attack he reaffirmed Washington’s “ironclad” support for the Zionist entity. But Biden has been pushing for caution from the Zionist entity, telling Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the White House would not offer military support for any retaliation against Iran, according to a senior US official.

The Hamas government media office said Zionist aircraft and tanks launched “dozens” of strikes overnight on central Gaza, reporting several casualties. Witnesses told AFP that strikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp, with clashes also reported in other areas of central and northern Gaza. The Zionist entity’s offensive has killed at least 33,797 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the territory. The toll rose by at least 68 deaths over 24 hours.

The Zionist entity released around 150 detainees on Monday who had been rounded up in Gaza, the territory’s crossings authority told AFP, saying they had been mistreated in detention. Zionist soldiers have rounded up hundreds of Palestinians during their more than six-month military offensive in Gaza, holding them without charge before releasing some in groups. The detainees to be released were taken to the Zionist entity and returned via the Kerem Shalom border crossing before some were treated in a hospital in Rafah, in the south of the besieged territory.

“Since the early hours of the morning, 150 prisoners from various parts of the Gaza Strip who were detained by the (Zionist) occupation have been released,” the spokesman for the Gaza Crossings Authority, Hisham Adwan, told AFP. “It is very noticeable that there is severe mistreatment of these prisoners, as a number of them were sent to Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital for treatment,” he added.

One of those released on Monday told AFP he and a friend were beaten and tortured in Zionist detention. AFP is not publishing his name for his safety. “I remained on my knees for (almost two months), from five in the morning until 10 at night, blindfolded and with tied hands,” he said. “The army... released dogs on us to attack us,” he added. “They beat and tortured us.”

Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group, which has had near-daily cross-border clashes with the Zionist entity since the war broke out, claimed an overnight attack on Zionist soldiers who had crossed into Lebanese territory. The Zionist army confirmed that four of its troops were wounded in an explosion while inside Lebanon. The group’s fighters “planted explosive devices in the Tal Ismail area” inside Lebanon and detonated them after Zionist soldiers crossed the border, Hezbollah said.

The United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting Sunday following the Iranian attack, where Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the region was “on the brink” of war. “Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate,” Guterres said.

More than six months of war have led to dire humanitarian conditions in the besieged Gaza Strip, which the UN has warned faces imminent famine. Rumors of a reopened Zionist checkpoint on the coastal road from the territory’s south to Gaza City sent thousands of Palestinians heading north on Sunday, despite the Zionist entity denying it was open.

Attempting the journey back to northern Gaza, displaced resident Basma Salman said, “even if it (my house) was destroyed, I want to go there. I couldn’t stay in the south”. “It’s overcrowded. We couldn’t even take a fresh breath of air there. It was completely terrible.” In Khan Yunis, southern Gaza’s main city, civil defense teams said they had retrieved at least 18 bodies from under the rubble of destroyed buildings. – AFP