North Gaza battle rages as Palestinian fighters ambush Israeli troops

Palestinian fighters engaged Israeli forces in fierce battles in northern Gaza City’s Shujayea neighbourhood a day after tanks and troops rolled in and sent tens of thousands of terrified civilians fleeing.

In a statement on Friday, al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said it blew up a booby-trapped residential building in Shujayea, killing four Israeli soldiers and wounding five others.

The improvised explosive device used was an undetonated F-16 missile recovered intact after it was fired from an Israeli warplane, it said.

The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said its fighters also continue to engage in “violent clashes” while “inflicting deaths and injuries” in attacks with anti-tank rockets and small-arms fire.

A day earlier, Israeli forces carried out heavy air and artillery attacks and sent armoured vehicles into war-ravaged northern Gaza in a renewed assault after pulling out in January saying Hamas had been “dismantled” in the area.

Palestinian civilians are leaving on foot carrying their meagre belongings through rubble-strewn streets in the intense summer heat. Israel displaced at least 60,000 people from Gaza City since Thursday, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Friday.

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No official confirmation of soldiers’ deaths Shujayea was immediately available on Friday but Israel’s military did report one soldier was killed and nine were wounded in clashes throughout Gaza over the last 24 hours.

Rafah battles ongoing

Ground operations backed by air raids are continuing in northern Gaza, killing “dozens” of fighters, the army said on Friday. The heavy fighting follows comments by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week suggesting the “intense phase” of the war is winding down.

Soldiers “started to conduct targeted raids” in Shujayea as intelligence indicated “the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure in the area “, the military said, in its first details of the operation.

At least 668 Israeli soldiers have been killed since October 7, 2023, including more than 300 since the ground invasion of Gaza began. Another 3,953 have been wounded.

Israel says it killed about 15,000 Palestinian fighters during the nearly nine-month conflict.

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Israel lost eight soldiers in a single attack earlier this month in southern Rafah as Hamas fighters ambushed and blew up a military vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade.

Palestinian health officials said tank shelling in Rafah killed at least 11 people on Friday. Displaced Palestinian families fled what they said was intensifying Israeli fire to seek shelter further north, describing chaotic scenes as fighting drew closer.

One resident said some bulldozers in the Shakoush area piled up sand for Israeli tanks to station behind.

“The situation there is very dangerous and many families are leaving towards Khan Younis, even from the Mawasi area as things became unsafe for them,” the unnamed man told the Reuters news agency.

The UN’s Dujarric said incursions into al-Mawasi – declared an “evacuation zone” by Israel’s army – resulted in many casualties and displacement of at least 5,000 people.

Most of Gaza’s population has been uprooted and much of the territory’s infrastructure destroyed, leaving residents struggling to survive. A UN-backed assessment this week said nearly 500,000 people in Gaza are experiencing “catastrophic” hunger.

North Gaza battle rages as Palestinian fighters ambush Israeli troops

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

Iran threatens Israel over ‘planned attack’ on Lebanon

Iran on Saturday warned that “all Resistance Fronts”, a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacked Lebanon.

The comment from Iran’s mission to New York comes with fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. The two sides have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war in Gaza began.

Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides.

Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated”, prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.

In a post on social media platform X, the Iranian mission said it “deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon”.

But, it added, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue. All options, incl. the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”

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The war in Gaza began in October when Hamas Palestinian militants attacked southern Israel.

Iran, which backs Hamas, has praised the attack as a success but has denied any involvement.

Alongside Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have repeatedly struck commercial ships in the Red Sea area in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.

Iran also backs other groups in the region.

The Islamic republic has not recognised Israel since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s United States-backed shah.

Fears of regional war also soared in April, after an air strike that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.

Iran hit back with an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13-14.

Iran’s state media later reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan as US media quoted American officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.

Tehran downplayed the reported Israeli raid.

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Biden vows to fight on after debate with Trump

US President Joe Biden has hit back at criticism over his age, telling supporters in a fiery speech that he will win re-election in November after a poor debate performance fuelled concern about his candidacy.

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he told a rally in the battleground state of North Carolina on Friday, one day after he struggled in the televised showdown with his Republican rival Donald Trump.

“I don’t walk as easy as I used to… I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he acknowledged. “But I know what I do know, I know how to tell the truth [and] I know how to do this job.”

Mr Biden, 81, said he believed with his “heart and soul” that he could serve another term, as the cheering crowd in Raleigh chanted “four more years”.

Trump, meanwhile, held a rally of his own in Virginia just hours later, where he hailed a “big victory” in the debate, which CNN said was viewed by 48 million people on television and millions more online. “Joe Biden’s problem is not his age,” the 78-year-old Trump said. “It’s his competence. He’s grossly incompetent.”

The former president said he did not believe speculation that Mr Biden would drop out of the race, saying he “does better in polls” than other Democrats, including California Governor Gavin Newsom and Vice-President Kamala Harris.

While questions over Mr Biden’s age are not new, his shaky performance on the debate stage – which was marked by verbal blanks, a hoarse voice and some difficult-to-follow answers – triggered panic among some Democrats who raised fresh questions about his candidacy.

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Democratic officials, political operatives, and people close to the president who spoke to the BBC’s Katty Kay painted a picture of an anxious party concerned about the strength of their candidate.

Nancy Pelosi, the former Democratic House speaker, said that “from a performance standpoint it wasn’t great”. Other Democrats, such as Biden’s former communications director Kate Bedingfield, called it “a really disappointing debate performance”.

Democratic donors who spoke anonymously to various media outlets were more forthright, with one calling the performance “disqualifying”. “The only way it could have been more disastrous was if he had fallen off the stage. Big donors are saying… he has to go,” one Democratic operative told the Financial Times.

And on Friday, the New York Times editorial board called on Mr Biden to drop out. It said Democrats should “acknowledge that Mr Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place”.

Despite concern from some media pundits, early indications suggest there has been “no change” in the polls in the aftermath of the debate, the Washington Post columnist Philip Bump told BBC R4’s Today programme.

However, Mr Bump pointed out no “high-quality” polls have been conducted since the debate aired.

Speaking later on the programme, pollster Frank Luntz said most Americans have already made up their minds about who they will vote for later this year.

But publicly, many senior Democrats and Biden allies defended his performance as they sought to calm liberal jitters on Friday. Among those to rally behind Mr Biden were former President Barack Obama, who tweeted that “bad debate nights happen”.

“This election is still a choice between someone who fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself,” Mr Obama wrote, adding that Mr Trump is “someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit”.

Mr Biden and his campaign were quick to dismiss calls for him to step down as the candidate.

“President Biden is the only person who has ever beaten Donald Trump. He will do it again,” a campaign adviser said. “This election was never going to be won or lost in one rally, one conversation, or one debate. “

The Biden campaign also said the president had raised $14m from fundraisers in recent days, in an apparent effort to show it was maintaining momentum.

Mr Biden is expected to meet donors on Friday and Saturday, including at events in Manhattan and the wealthy Hamptons.

Biden vows to fight on after debate with Trump

BBC