• Residents say bulldozers demolishing homes, markets• Israeli tanks, warplanes bombard parts of RafahCAIRO: Israeli forces launched a fresh assault on northern Gaza on Friday in some of the fiercest engagements since they returned to the area a week ago, while in the south Hamas fighters attacked tanks massing around Rafah. It is all happening before the one-eyed world,” Ayman Rajab, a resident of western Jabalia, said via a chat app. At the southern end of Gaza, thick smoke rose over Rafah, bordering Egypt, where an escalating Israeli assault has sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from what was one of the only places of refuge left. Israel said on Friday that its forces had rescued the bodies of three prisoners from Gaza, without saying where they were found. Many have crowded into Deir al-Balah, a city up the coast that is the only other one in Gaza yet to be assaulted by Israeli forces.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 18, 2024 03:25 UTC