Jerusalem, May 16 (AP) Israel's defense minister says more troops will be sent into the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where the military says it has destroyed Hamas tunnels and killed dozens of militants.

Israel began what it said was a limited operation in Rafah last week after the United States and other allies pressed it not to launch a full-scale invasion.

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But even the limited operation has sparked an exodus of 600,000 Palestinians from the city, according to the United Nations. Before the incursion, more than a million Palestinians who had fled fighting in other areas were sheltering in Rafah.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, visiting the area on Wednesday, said, “This operation will continue as additional forces will enter.” He said “we are wearing Hamas down,” more than seven months into the war triggered by the militant group's Oct 7 attack.

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Even as Israeli troops have pushed into parts of Rafah, Hamas has regrouped in other areas of Gaza that were heavily bombed earlier in the war, and which the military said it had cleared.

The United States has warned Israel not to launch a wide-scale offensive in Rafah because of the toll it would take on civilians. President Joe Biden has said the US won't provide offensive weapons for such an operation.

HEZBOLLAH FIRES ROCKETS INTO ISRAEL AS TIT-FOR-TAT COMBAT ESCALATES

JERUSALEM — The Hezbollah militant group said it fired dozens of rockets from Lebanon into Israel on Thursday, the latest in tit-for-tat combat between the sides that has escalated over the last week.

The group said it fired 60 rockets at three military posts in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights in retaliation for earlier Israeli airstrikes.

Israel's military said it responded to what it said were some 40 rockets launched Thursday by striking Hezbollah military posts.

Hezbollah has increased the amount of rockets it has been firing into Israel in recent days and on Wednesday it reportedly struck its deepest target in Israel since the start of the fighting in October. Israeli media reported that an Israeli air force target was struck by a drone, a report the military declined to comment on.

“Hezbollah has been escalating the situation in the north,” said military spokesman Lt Col Nadav Shoshani. “They've been firing more and more.”

Israel has also been striking deep inside Lebanon.

The fighting began shortly after Israel launched its war against Hamas following the militant group's attack on southern Israel.

ISRAELI MILITARY SAYS IT KILLED 100 MILITANTS SINCE THE START OF RAFAH OFFENSIVE LAST WEEK

JERUSALEM — Israel's military said Thursday its forces have killed 100 militants since it launched an invasion into the southernmost Gaza city of Rafah last week.

Military spokesman Lt Col Nadav Shoshani told reporters Thursday that Israeli forces found militant tunnel shafts underneath and in the vicinity of the Rafah crossing near the border with Egypt. Israeli forces seized the crossing at the start of the operation in Rafah.

“We are continuing to operate in the Rafah crossing,” said Shoshani.

Israel says it is operating in Rafah to destroy remaining Hamas battalions there and to rescue Israeli hostages. Israel's plans for Rafah have raised international alarm because the city had provided shelter to more than a million Palestinians. While the current operation does not appear to be a full-scale invasion, it has sent 600,000 people fleeing the city since the offensive began last week, according to the United Nations.

An Israeli strike overnight hit a residential home in central Rafah, killing four men, including a 65-year-old man and his 22-year-old son, according to records from Kuwaiti hospital.

Another strike, in the southern city of Khan Younis, killed five children, said Dr Ammar Ghanem, a visiting doctor from the US stationed at the European Hospital where the bodies were taken. One of the five, a girl, was brought to the hospital with internal bleeding after surviving the initial strike on Thursday, Ghanem said, but she died while getting a CT scan.

Shoshani said forces were also operating in the northern Gaza areas of Jabaliya and Zeitoun where fierce fighting continued with militants. The spike in fighting suggests that Hamas is regrouping in areas the Israeli military said it had asserted control over months ago. Rocket fire toward Israel has also increased in recent days.

The Health Ministry in Gaza said Thursday that the bodies of 39 Palestinians had been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours, raising the overall death toll since the start of the war to 35,272. The ministry's count does not distinguish between militants and noncombatants killed. Israel says it has killed roughly 12,000 militants, without providing evidence.

GERMANY BANS PRO-PALESTINIAN GROUP

BERLIN – German authorities say they have banned a group that showed solidarity with “Palestinian resistance in all forms” and raided properties linked to it.

The interior ministry in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populous, said it had banned the Palestine Solidarity Duisburg group on Thursday. It accused the group of spreading antisemitic narratives.

The ministry said police searched four properties in the city of Duisburg linked to the group on Thursday.

The region's top security official, state Interior Minister Herbert Reul, said the move “sends the right signal” and added in a statement that “in many cases nothing other than hatred for Jews is hidden behind solidarity with Palestine, as in the case of the organisation banned today”.

In November, Germany's federal government implemented a formal ban on activity by or in support of Hamas and dissolved Samidoun, a group that was behind a celebration in Berlin of Hamas' attack on Israel.

3 PALESTINIANS KILLED BY ISRAELI FORCES IN WEST BANK

JERUSALEM — The Palestinian Health Ministry said Thursday that Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Ramallah-based ministry said that the three men, all younger than 30, were killed by Israeli fire overnight in the flashpoint city of Tulkarem, though the circumstances of the shootings were uncertain.

Since Oct 7, violence has flared in the occupied territory, with stepped-up Israeli raids into Palestinian cities and towns often turning deadly. The shootings pushed the Palestinian death toll in the territory since the beginning of the war in Gaza to just over 500.

Also overnight, Israeli police said they shot and killed a man who attempted to stab an officer in east Jerusalem. Police said the officers opened fire as the man charged at them with a knife, killing him. The officers were not wounded and the identity of the attacker was not immediately clear.

Palestinians and rights groups say Israel uses excessive force to subdue suspected attackers. Israel says its forces face complex and often life-threatening situations that demand a response.

In other violence, the Israeli military said Thursday a noncommissioned officer was moderately wounded in a stabbing attack in the West Bank. The army later said it had arrested a suspect in the attack.

Attacks by Palestinians have also been on the rise since the war against Hamas broke out on Oct 7. (AP)

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)