Israel's warplanes pounded Gaza, sending wounded and dead Palestinians into hospitals and residents into the streets to flee, as its war against Hamas resumed after talks to extend a week-old truce broke down.

As the deadline lapsed, Reuters journalists in Khan Younis in southern Gaza saw eastern areas come under intensive bombardment, sending columns of smoke rising into the sky. Residents took to the road with belongings heaped up in carts, fleeing for shelter further west.

In the north of the enclave, previously the main war zone, huge plumes of smoke rose above the ruins, seen from across the fence in Israel. The rattle of gunfire and thud of explosions rang out above the sound of barking dogs.

Rocket sirens also blared across southern Israel as militants fired from the coastal enclave into towns.

Within hours of the truce expiring, Gaza health officials reported that 54 people had already been killed and dozens wounded in air strikes that hit at least eight homes.

      • MxM111@kbin.social
        10·
        1 year ago

        Do you truly believe that if the goal was extermination, IDF would be that ineffective ?

        • Eldritch@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          If they want plausible deniability, absolutely. And who wouldn’t want plausible deniability?

          • MxM111@kbin.social
            7·
            1 year ago

            So, they achieve deniability by not doing it and instead fighting Hamas? Ok. So, if their actions contradicts extermination, their statements contradicts extermination, then how is that extermination?

        • Chainweasel@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          The IDF needs to not broaden the conflict to include it’s neighbors, which have already shot across the border to Israel as soon as they fired back at Gaza.
          The fear was that when Israel sent troops into Gaza, Jordan and Syria would respond with force.
          The Israeli land invasion of Gaza was more limited and precise than expected so Israel’s neighbors have held off but tensions are still very high.
          If the IDF weren’t so “ineffective”, this conflict has real potential to boil over into WWIII.
          So they’re slowly whittling away at Gaza at the moment.
          But the goal from Israel’s perspective is, and always has been, a single state solution.
          They’re just using the “slow is smooth, smooth is fast” approach, as much as that phrase can be applied to active combat anyway.

          • MxM111@kbin.social
            7·
            1 year ago

            So, you list all the reasons not to do extermination and thus suggest that they do not do it, right? You may claim that you can read their mind, but the actions and the statements are not how extermination is done.