GAZA: Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Saturday that a sweeping Zionist military operation has killed more than 400 people in two weeks in the territory’s north, where the Zionist entity kept hammering targets while fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon. Hamas ally Hezbollah has vowed to intensify attacks on the Zionist entity weeks into an all-out war that erupted on Sept 23, launching on Saturday rocket barrages at the Zionist entity’s north, where rescuers said one man was killed by shrapnel.

According to the office of Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a drone attack from Lebanon targeted his residence in the coastal town of Caesarea, though the family were not there at the time and there were no injuries. Later, Zionist media published a video of Netanyahu walking in a park.

The latest attacks come as Hamas, Hezbollah and allied groups in the region have vowed to keep fighting after Zionist troops killed the Palestinian movement’s leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza, more than a year into the war. Analysts said Sinwar, accused of masterminding the Oct 7 attack on the Zionist entity, was pivotal to ending the Gaza war and securing the release of Zionist captives.

The Zionist entity, vowing to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping in northern Gaza, launched a major air and ground assault on Oct 6, tightening its siege on the war-battered area and sending tens of thousands of people fleeing. Civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said that “we have recovered more than 400 martyrs from the various targeted areas in the northern Gaza Strip”, including Jabalia and its refugee camp, since the Zionist operation began.

The actual death toll may be higher, Bassal told AFP, as “there are dozens of bodies scattered in the streets of Jabalia”. Contacted by AFP, the Zionist military said it was looking into the civil defense agency’s reports out of Gaza, including that an overnight air raid on Jabalia killed 33 people. The violence has dashed hopes Sinwar’s death on Wednesday might bring the war closer to an end.

The Zionist genocidal campaign has killed 42,519 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. The Zionist entity has faced mounting criticism over the civilian toll and lack of food and aid reaching Gaza, where the UN has warned of famine. As fighting raged on in northern Gaza, witnesses told AFP that air strikes continued to pound the area during the day. Medics said Zionist forces were shelling the Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza. The military reported troops operating near the facility but said “no intentional fire” was directed at it.

“Another 20,000 people were forced to flee Jabalia camp” on Friday, said the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. On social media platform X, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini reported “critical shortage of fuel and medical supplies... in the last remaining hospitals”.

Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose country supports Hamas, said the regional “resistance front” against the Zionist entity “will not end at all with the martyrdom of Sinwar”, the latest in a series of militant leader killings. “Hamas is alive and will remain alive”, he said in a statement.

Sinwar “was the shining figure of resistance and struggle”, Khamenei said in his first remarks on Sinwar since he was killed on Wednesday. “He stood with unwavering determination against the cruel and aggressive enemy and slapped them with tact and courage,” he added. “He left behind the irreparable blow of October 7, 2023 as his legacy in the history of this region, and then he soared with honor and pride to the ascension of the martyrs.”

In Lebanon, where the Zionist entity last month ramped up air raids and deployed ground forces after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges with Hezbollah, state media said a strike hit the group’s south Beirut stronghold on Saturday. AFP footage showed plumes of smoke rising over the area, less than an hour after the Zionist military issued an evacuation order.

A strike on the eastern Bekaa Valley killed four people including a town mayor, said Lebanon’s official National News Agency, and the health ministry reported two dead in a Zionist attack on a vital highway north of Beirut. Hezbollah said it fired “a rocket salvo” at the northern Zionist town of Safed, shortly after announcing attacks on an army base near Haifa city. The Zionist army reported 115 projectiles launched from Lebanon.

Since late September, the war has left at least 1,418 people dead in Lebanon, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell called to beef up the mandate of the UN peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, to give UNIFIL more scope to act amid repeated attacks on their positions.

World leaders again called for an end to the war after Sinwar’s death, which Netanyahu called “the beginning of the end”. US, German, French and British leaders urged “immediate” action to “bring the hostages home”, end the violence and “ensure humanitarian aid reaches civilians” in Gaza. In August, Netanyahu said Sinwar was “the only obstacle to a hostage deal”. On Friday, Qatar-based Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya reiterated that the group would not free Zionist hostages “unless the aggression against our people in Gaza stops”. – Agencies