“We heard explosions from every direction,” said Mohammad al-Bahrawi, 65, who had returned with his family to their home in Shajaiye months ago. He said “a flood” of people were sent running.
“I couldn’t even believe that so many people were still in Shajaiye,” Mr al-Bahrawi said.
The Israeli military said it could not immediately comment on the strikes. Israel’s public broadcaster Kan reported that the army was conducting a ground operation to root out Hamas based on information that the armed group had begun to regain control of the neighborhood.
The operation, if confirmed, would be part of a wider war plan in which Israel has fought to achieve its goal: the elimination of Hamas, which organized and led the October 7 attacks on Israeli soil that sparked the Gaza war . .
Israeli forces have repeatedly found themselves returning to parts of Gaza they had previously abandoned, especially in the north, as Hamas regroups amid the anarchy of the nine-month war. Fighting has flared even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks of a new, less intense phase.
In Israel and globally, frustration is growing over what critics say is Mr. Netanyahu’s failure to present a plan for how Gaza should be governed if Hamas is defeated.
Daniel Byman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank in Washington, said the key to defeating a counterinsurgency was known by the acronym “clear, hold, build.”
The Israelis have “thought about Day 1 — kill the bad guys — but they haven’t focused on the next steps,” Mr. Byman said. “This was inexcusable even in October and November. Now there is less and less excuse.”
Gaza health authorities said on Thursday that 15 people were killed and dozens wounded in Shajaiye. Civil Defense, the Palestinian emergency agency, said five houses were hit in Shajaiye and another neighborhood and that searches were underway for missing people. The toll could not be independently verified.
