CAIRO/GAZA: The Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad fired a barrage of rockets into the Zionist entity on Monday as fighting raged in Gaza and Zionist tanks advanced deeper in parts of the enclave, residents and officials said. The armed wing of Islamic Jihad, an Iranian-backed ally of Hamas, said its fighters fired rockets towards several Zionist communities near the fence with Gaza in response to “the crimes of the Zionist enemy against our Palestinian people”.

The volley of about 20 rockets caused no casualties, the Zionist military said. But the attack showed militants still possess rocket capabilities almost nine months into an offensive that the entity says is aimed at neutralizing threats against it.

Residents of several neighborhoods in eastern Khan Yunis, which is in southern Gaza, said they had received audio messages from Zionist phone numbers ordering them to leave their homes. “For your safety, you must evacuate immediately to the humanitarian zone,” army spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on social media platform X in a call to residents and displaced people living in those areas.

Some suggested this could mean Zionist forces will return to the area, which they left several weeks ago. The Zionist military said in a statement earlier on Monday the rockets were fired from the Khan Yunis area. Violence also flared on Monday in the Zionist-occupied West Bank, where the Palestinian health ministry said a woman and a boy were killed in the city of Tulkarm during an operation by Zionist forces. A day earlier, a Zionist strike in the same area killed an Islamic Jihad member.

In some parts of Gaza, militants continue to stage attacks on Zionist forces in areas that the army said they had left months ago. Zionist tanks deepened incursions into the Shejaia suburb of eastern Gaza City for a fifth day, and tanks advanced further in western and central Rafah, in southern Gaza near the border with Egypt, residents said.

The Zionist military said it had killed a number of militants in combat in Shejaia on Monday and found large amounts of weapons there. Hamas said its fighters had lured a Zionist force into a booby-trapped house in the east of Rafah and blown it up, causing casualties.

The Zionist military announced the death of a soldier in southern Gaza without providing details. The entity’s Army Radio said the soldier was killed in Rafah in a booby-trapped house — a possible reference to the incident reported by Hamas.

Also in Rafah, the Zionist military said that an airstrike killed a militant who fired an anti-tank missile at its troops. The Zionist entity has signaled that its operation in Rafah, meant to stamp out Hamas, will soon be concluded. After the intense phase of the war is over, its forces will focus on smaller scale operations meant to stop Hamas reassembling, officials say.

The war began after Hamas-led fighters entered the south of the Zionist entity on Oct 7, killed around 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages, including civilians and soldiers, back into Gaza, according to Zionist tallies. The offensive that the Zionist entity launched in retaliation has killed nearly 38,000 people, according to the Gaza health ministry, and has left the heavily built-up coastal enclave in ruins. The Gaza health ministry does not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, but officials say most of the dead are civilians. The Zionist entity says 317 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza and that at least a third of the Palestinian dead are fighters. — Reuters