Israel moves into north Gaza Hamas stronghold, pounds Rafah

Israel's tanks pushed into the heart of Jabalia in northern Gaza on Thursday, facing anti-tank rockets and mortar bombs from militants concentrated there, while in the south, its forces pounded Rafah without advancing, Palestinian residents and militants said.

The slow progress of Israel's offensive, more than seven months after Hamas' deadly cross-border raid prompted it, highlighted the difficulty of achieving Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aim of eradicating the militant group.

Armed wings of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have been able to fight up and down the Gaza Strip, using heavily fortified tunnels to stage attacks in both the north—the focus of Israel's initial invasion—and new battlegrounds like Rafah.

"We are wearing Hamas down," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said, announcing that more troops would be deployed in Rafah, where he said several tunnels had been destroyed.

Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri responded that the group would defend its people "by all means."

Israel says four Hamas battalions are now in Rafah along with hostages abducted during the October 7 assault, but it faces international pressure not to invade the city, where hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian civilians are sheltering.

South Africa asked the top UN court to order a halt to Israel's Rafah offensive, saying it was "part of the endgame in which Gaza is utterly destroyed." Israel has denied South African allegations of genocide in Gaza and said it had complied with an earlier court order to step up aid.

The Gaza death toll has risen to 35,272, health officials in the Hamas-run coastal enclave said, and malnutrition is widespread with international aid efforts blocked by the violence and Israel's de-facto shutdowns of its Kerem Shalom crossing and the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

Israel says it needs to eliminate the organization after the deaths of 1,200 people on October 7 and to free the 128 hostages still held out of the 253 abducted by the militants, according to its tallies.