Israel says it controls 60pc of Gaza

Israel says its forces now control 60pc of Gaza, while a strike targeted senior Hamas leader Ezzedine Al-Haddad. In the West Bank, a 15-year-old boy was shot dead and settlers allegedly torched part of a mosque and vehicles near Ramallah.

JERUSALEM/ RAMALLAH: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces now control 60 per cent of the Gaza Strip, suggesting troops have expanded into more of the Palestinian territory than set out in an October ceasefire plan.

His comments came on Nakba Day, which commemorates 77 years of Palestinian displacement and Israeli occupation. “Nakba”, meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, refers to the flight and expulsion of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians during the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

Gaza remains gripped by daily violence, while efforts to advance a fragile truce and bring a permanent end to the war appear to have stalled.

“In the past two years we have shown the entire world what mighty forces are embedded in our people, in our state, in our army, in our heritage,” Netanyahu said on Thursday at an event. He said that they had brought back all their prisoners, up to the last one. “There were those who said: get out, get out! We did not get out. Today we control 60 per cent; tomorrow we shall see.”

Hamas leader targeted

Meanwhile, Israeli defence minister’s office said it carried out a strike in Gaza targeting senior Hamas leader Ezzedine Al-Haddad, who it described as one of the principal architects of October 7 attack.

It did not say whether he had been killed.

“Ezzedine Al-Haddad was the target of the strike and BDA (battle damage assessment) confirmation is still pending,” a military official said, in a separate statement.

Israeli television aired footage of a building on fire in Gaza, saying it was the site where Haddad had been targeted.

Earlier, the Palestinian Authority said Israeli forces shot dead a 15-year-old Palestinian boy in the occupied West Bank, while the military said he had been throwing stones at Israeli cars on a road.

The health ministry said it had been informed that Fahd Zidan Oweis was shot dead by the Israeli forces in the town of Al-Lubban al-Sharqiyya in the Nablus governorate.

Separately, in the village of Jibiya, north of Ramallah, Palestinians said illegal Israeli settlers set fire to a room inside a mosque and several vehicles. Graffiti in Hebrew was also sprayed on the mosque’s outer walls.