Tuesday Briefing

A funeral for an Israeli soldier killed in northern Gaza on Sunday.Credit…Amir Levy/Getty Images

Fierce fighting raged in Northern Gaza

After nearly three months of an intensified Israeli military campaign in northern Gaza to quell what Israel has said is a Hamas resurgence, fighting continued unabated yesterday, with each side claiming successes against the other’s fighters.

The military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, said that it had destroyed an Israeli vehicle, killing and wounding an unspecified number of soldiers, and that it had killed five Israeli solders in Jabaliya, another northern town. The Israeli military released a statement saying that one soldier had been killed in combat and that three members of the same brigade had been severely injured in the same clash.

Separately, the Israeli military announced that it had killed and arrested “multiple” militants in an overnight operation near Jabaliya. It said that action had followed a “targeted operation” against a Hamas command center “embedded inside Kamal Adwan Hospital” in the same area over the weekend that led to the arrest of more than 240 militants.

Response: The fighting in and around hospitals in northern Gaza has raised alarms in the international community and among humanitarian organizations. Israeli officials have accused Hamas of exploiting Kamal Adwan and other civilian infrastructure in Gaza for military purposes.

Dropping temperatures: At least five babies have died from the cold in Gaza in the past week as winter worsens the toll on a population traumatized by 15 months of conflict.

Lebanon: Though the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is suspended in a fragile truce, Lebanon’s economic recovery is still reeling from the war.