Israeli warplanes pounded targets across Gaza on Monday, Israeli forces reported, shortly after allowing a small shipment of aid to enter the besieged territory ruled by the militant group Hamas.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed it struck more than 320 military sites in the Gaza Strip, including tunnels with Hamas targets, command centers, and dozens of mortar shell and anti-tank missile launch posts.
The bombardment comes ahead of an expected ground invasion by Israeli forces into Gaza. The IDF said it struck targets “that posed a threat to forces in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip who are preparing for ground operations.”
A ground invasion would signal a major escalation in Israel’s fight against Hamas, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and several other countries.
Monday marked the 17th day of violence following Hamas’s bloody massacre in which more than 1,400 Israelis were killed — including hundreds of civilians — in their homes, at a bus stop and music festival.
Israeli forces have since ratcheted up a major counteroffensive, sending hundreds of air strikes into the region and assembling hundreds of thousands of soldiers in the area surrounding the Gaza Strip.
More than 5,000 Palestinians have died so far in the conflict in Gaza, including an estimated 2,055 children and 1,119 women, with more than 15,000 injured, the Gaza Health Ministry reported Monday.
As hospitals in Gaza deal with the masses of wounded civilians, they are also faced with a dwindling supply of food, water, fuel and medicine following Israel’s siege.
Nearly two weeks after the siege order, two aid convoys were allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt using the Rafah crossing, which closed early into the conflict amid Israeli air strikes. The convoys carried food, water and medical supplies but did not include fuel, needed for water, sanitation systems and hospitals.
A United Nations agency providing humanitarian aid in Gaza is expected to run out of fuel in the coming days as a result, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), said Sunday.
Lazzarini said Gaza needs much more aid than the convoys were able to provide over the weekend and called for a “significant scaling up of a supply line into Gaza.”
Israeli forces have also struck targets in the occupied West Bank, Syria and Lebanon and exchanged fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group, fueling concerns over a multi-front war for Israel.
The Associated Press contributed.