With U.S. backing, Israel presses ahead in Gaza

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli forces pressed ahead with their Gaza offensive Tuesday with renewed backing from the United States.

The Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, warned the campaign in Gaza’s south will persist for months.

Gallant said Israeli forces were entering Hamas’ tunnel network in northern Gaza as part of a “final clearing” of terrorists from the region. The densely built urban north, including Gaza City, has seen ferocious fighting between troops and terrorists.

Gallant said that in southern Gaza, operations will take “months,” including the military’s assault on Khan Younis, the territory’s second largest city. “We will not stop until we reach our goals,” he said.

After meeting with Israeli officials Monday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said protecting Palestinian civilians was “both a moral duty and a strategic imperative” for Israel. He also reiterated America’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas, and said he was “not here to dictate timelines or terms.”

Austin’s remarks signaled that the U.S. would continue shielding Israel from growing international calls for a cease-fire as the United Nations Security Council was set to hold another vote Wednesday — and would continue to provide aid for Israel’s military campaign.

The military said Tuesday it had killed a prominent Hamas financier in an airstrike on Rafah in southern Gaza.

Fierce battles also raged in northern Gaza. The military said Tuesday its forces took “operational control” of the urban refugee camp of Jabaliya.

Israel has killed hundreds of Hamas terrorists there and detained another 500 suspected terrorists, according to a statement from division commander Brig. Gen. Itsik Cohen.

Hospital raid

Israeli forces raided the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City overnight, according to the church that operates it, destroying a wall at its front entrance and detaining most of its staff.

The facility was the scene of an explosion early in the war that killed dozens of Palestinians, which Israeli, U.S. and European intelligence show was likely caused by a misfired Palestinian rocket. An Associated Press investigation later confirmed that assessment.

The military said Tuesday that troops found an explosive device inside a clinic in Shijaiyah, a Gaza City neighborhood that has seen heavy fighting in recent days. It did not say whether the clinic was operational, and in footage released by the military it appeared to have been abandoned.

Israeli troops seized northern Gaza’s Al Awda hospital on Sunday after besieging it for 12 days, the international aid group Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday.

Forces have raided other hospitals across Gaza, accusing Hamas of using them for military purposes. Strikes Sunday and Monday hit inside Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.

The war began after Hamas and other terrorists killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and abducted 240 others on Oct. 7.

Israel’s military says 131 of its soldiers have been killed in the Gaza ground offensive. Israel says it has killed thousands of terrorists and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, saying it uses them as human shields when it fights in residential areas.

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

Hamas has continued to lob rockets at Israel. The terrorists said they fired a barrage toward Tel Aviv on Tuesday, and air raid sirens went off in central Israel. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said the death toll since the start of the war had risen to more than 19,600. It does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

The war has sparked attacks on U.S. and Israeli targets across the region.

Assaults on ships in the Red Sea by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have led major shipping companies — as well as the oil and gas giant BP — to suspend trade through the vital waterway, prompting the U.S. and its allies to launch a new mission to counter the threat.

Security Council postpones vote

U.N. Security Council members continued intense negotiations on an Arab-sponsored resolution to spur humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza during some kind of a halt in the fighting. A vote on the resolution, first postponed from Monday, was pushed back again until Wednesday as talks continued to get the U.S. to abstain or vote “yes” on the resolution after it vetoed an earlier cease-fire call.

France, the United Kingdom and Germany — some of Israel’s closest allies — joined global calls for a cease-fire over the weekend. In Israel, protesters have called for negotiations with Hamas to facilitate the release of scores of hostages still held by the group.

CIA Director William Burns met in Warsaw with the head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency and the prime minister of Qatar on Monday, the first known meeting of the three since the cease-fire and the release of some 100 hostages in a deal they helped broker.

But U.S. National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the talks were not “at a point where another deal is imminent.”

Hamas and other terrorists are still holding an estimated 129 captives.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted that Israel will keep fighting until it ends Hamas rule in Gaza, crushes its military capabilities and frees all the hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack.

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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press writers Tia Goldenberg in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem contributed.