TEL AVIV – Israel said it had “dismantled” Hamas’ military leadership in the northern Gaza Strip as the war against the Palestinian group entered its fourth month on Sunday, with fears growing that the conflict could spread to neighboring Lebanon.

Six people were killed in an Israeli attack in Jenin in the occupied West Bank early Sunday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Witnesses reported that Israel also carried out airstrikes on Gaza’s southernmost city, Khan Yunis.

The Israeli army said late Saturday it had “completed the dismantling of Hamas’s military framework in the northern Gaza Strip” and that its forces would now focus on central and southern areas of the territory.

The prospect of a larger regional war emerged as army spokesman Daniel Hagari warned that the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group was “dragging Lebanon into an unnecessary war.”

The group fired more than 60 rockets at an Israeli military base on Saturday in response to the killing of Hamas’s deputy leader in Beirut this week.

The war in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 that killed around 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

According to Israel, the militants also took about 250 hostages, 132 of whom are still in captivity. At least 24 people are believed to have been killed.

In response, Israel is waging a relentless bombardment and ground invasion that has killed at least 22,722 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that Israel would continue its campaign to “eliminate Hamas, return our hostages and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.”

Netanyahu came under increasing pressure on Saturday as protesters gathered in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to demand early elections and the resignation of his government.

“Bibi Netanyahu and all his other idiots are ruining Israel and they are destroying everything we hoped and dreamed of,” Shachaf Netzer, 54, told AFP.

“Everyone here wants a choice.”

‘UNINHABITABLE’

AFP correspondents reported on Saturday Israeli attacks in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of people sought shelter from the fighting.

Victims of the bombing were taken to the European Hospital in Khan Yunis, where relatives and mourners gathered.

One of them, Mohamed Awad, wept over the body of a 12-year-old boy and counted the deaths in his family.

“My brother, his wife, his children, his relatives and his wife’s brothers – there are more than 20 martyrs,” Awad, a journalist, told AFP.

Civilians in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip are bearing the brunt of the conflict, as the scale of destruction has led to mass displacement and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

With parts of the territory reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said on Friday: “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable.”

According to the World Health Organization, most of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been rendered inoperable by the fighting, while the remaining medical facilities face severe shortages.

International aid group Doctors Without Borders said it evacuated its staff from Al-Aqsa hospital in central Gaza after a bullet pierced a wall in the intensive care unit.

“The situation became so dangerous that some employees living in neighboring areas were unable to leave their homes due to the constant threat of drones and snipers,” said Carolina Lopez, the group’s emergency coordinator at the hospital.

Diplomatic push

Top Western diplomats were in the region over the weekend to boost the flow of aid to Gaza and counter growing fears of a wider conflict.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Jordan on Sunday during a Middle East trip that will take him to Israel and the occupied West Bank next week.

“One of the real concerns is the border between Israel and Lebanon, and we want to do everything we can to ensure that there is no escalation,” he told reporters in Greece, where he stopped before continuing on to Jordan.

Blinken was scheduled to hold talks with Jordan’s King Abdullah II before leaving for Qatar and Abu Dhabi later in the day.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell visited Beirut on Saturday, where he met a senior figure from Hezbollah’s political wing in a bid to prevent Lebanon from being drawn into the war, an EU source confirmed.

Borrell also held talks with the head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, Lebanese media reported.

“It is imperative to avoid regional escalation in the Middle East. It is absolutely necessary to prevent Lebanon from being drawn into a regional conflict,” Borrell said at a news conference in Beirut.

Borrell said he would next travel to Saudi Arabia to discuss “a joint EU-Arab initiative” for peace.

The Hamas-allied Hezbollah movement has engaged in almost daily firefights with Israeli forces since early October and fired dozens of rockets at an Israeli military base in response to the killing of a senior Hamas leader in a suspected Israeli attack in Beirut on Tuesday.

Hezbollah said it attacked the Israeli military’s Meron air base with 62 rockets in its “initial response” to the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri in Beirut.

The Israeli army reported “approximately 40 kills from Lebanon” and said it had attacked Hezbollah “military sites” in response.