DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli attacks in the central Gaza Strip killed at least 35 people on Sunday, hospital officials said, as fighting raged in the tiny enclave, a day after Israel’s prime minister said the war would continue for “many more months.” ” and defied international calls for a ceasefire.

The military said Israeli forces were deployed in Khan Younis, Gaza’s second-largest city, and residents reported attacks in the central region, the latest focus of the nearly three-month air and ground war that has raised fears of a regional conflagration.

The U.S. military said its troops shot and killed several Iran-backed Houthi rebels as they tried to attack a cargo ship in the Red Sea, an escalation of a maritime conflict linked to the war. And an Israeli cabinet minister suggested encouraging Gaza’s population to emigrate – comments that could increase tensions with Egypt and other friendly Arab states.

Israel says it wants to destroy Hamas’s government and military capabilities in Gaza, from where it launched its attack on southern Israel on October 7. The militants killed about 1,200 people after breaching Israel’s extensive border defenses, destroying Israel’s sense of security. They also took about 240 hostages, nearly half of whom were released as part of a temporary ceasefire agreement in November.

Shortly after midnight on New Year’s Day, Hamas militants fired a barrage of rockets and triggered air raid sirens in southern and central Israel. No injuries were reported.

Displaced Palestinians found little reason to celebrate on New Year’s Eve in Muwasi, a makeshift camp in a largely undeveloped area on the Mediterranean coast of southern Gaza that has been designated a safe zone by Israel.

“Given the intensity of the pain we are going through, we don’t feel like there is a new year,” said Kamal al-Zeinaty, huddled around a fire in a tent with his family. “All days are the same.”

Another relative, Zeyad al-Zeinaty, who fled with the family from Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, said his wife, brother and grandchildren were among the many relatives he lost in the war.

Israel’s unprecedented air and ground offensive has killed more than 21,800 Palestinians and injured more than 56,000 others in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilian and combatant deaths.

According to the United Nations, the war has sparked a humanitarian crisis with a quarter of Gazans at risk of starvation. Israeli bombings have leveled large swaths of the territory and displaced about 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents.

The offensive continues

This week Israel expanded its offensive into the central Gaza Strip, targeting a belt of densely built-up communities housing refugees from the 1948 war over the creation of Israel and their descendants.

In Zweida, an Israeli airstrike killed at least 13 people and injured dozens more, according to witnesses. The bodies were wrapped in white plastic and laid out outside a hospital where prayers were held before the funeral.

“They were innocent people,” said Hussein Siam, whose relatives were among the dead. “Israeli warplanes bombed the entire family.”

Officials at Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Deir al-Balah said the 13 were among 35 bodies brought in on Sunday.

The Israeli military said it was fighting militants in Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas leaders are hiding. It was also said that forces operating in the Shati refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip had found a bomb in a kindergarten and defused it. Hamas continued to fire rockets into southern Israel.

Since Israel began its ground offensive in late October, it has faced fierce resistance from Hamas. According to the military, 172 soldiers were killed during this time.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the top military spokesman, said on Sunday that Israel was withdrawing some forces from Gaza as part of its “intelligent management” of the war. He did not say how many there were, raising the possibility that they would return later in the war.

Israeli media said up to five brigades with thousands of soldiers were being withdrawn, but it was not immediately clear whether this was a normal troop rotation or a new phase of fighting. Hagari also said some reservists would return to civilian life to bolster Israel’s war economy.

The fighting has pushed much of Gaza’s population south, where people have flooded shelters and tent camps near the border with Egypt. Hundreds of thousands have sought refuge in downtown Deir al-Balah. Israel has continued to carry out attacks in both areas.

Eman al-Masri, who gave birth to quadruplets in a hospital in Deir al-Balah a week ago, now lives with them in a room with 50 other people in a school turned shelter. “There is a shortage of diapers, they are not available and there is no milk,” she said.

ISRAELI MINISTER urges mass migration from Gaza

The scale of the destruction and the exodus to the south have raised fears among Palestinians and Arab countries that Israel is planning to drive the population out of Gaza and prevent them from returning.

On Sunday, Israel’s far-right finance minister said it should “encourage” migration from Gaza and rebuild Jewish settlements in the area from which it withdrew settlers and soldiers in 2005.

“If there were only 100,000 or 200,000 Arabs in Gaza and not 2 million, the whole discussion about ‘the day after tomorrow’ would be completely different,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Army Radio.

Smotrich was largely sidelined by a war cabinet of which he was not a member. But his comments risk escalating tensions with neighboring Egypt, which, among other friendly Arab countries, is deeply concerned about a possible mass influx of Palestinian refugees.

Later on Sunday, an official in the prime minister’s office said Israel did not want to relocate Palestinians.

“Contrary to false claims, Israel is not trying to displace the population in Gaza,” the official said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Subject to security controls, Israel’s policy is to allow those wishing to leave the country to leave the country.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media.

Israel is also arguing over the future of the Gaza Strip with the USA, which provided crucial military assistance for the offensive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel must maintain unlimited security control over the Gaza Strip. At a news conference on Saturday, he said the war would continue for “many more months” and that Israel would take control of the Gaza side of the border with Egypt.

Israel says Hamas has been smuggling weapons from Egypt, but Egypt is likely to oppose any Israeli military presence there.

Netanyahu has also said he will not allow the internationally backed Palestinian Authority, which administers some parts of the occupied West Bank, to extend its limited rule into Gaza, where Hamas drove out its forces in 2007.

The U.S. wants a unified Palestinian government governing both Gaza and parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a precursor to eventual statehood. The last Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed over a decade ago, and Israeli governments have since then staunchly opposed the creation of a Palestinian state.

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Mroue reported from Beirut and Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writers Melanie Lidman in Jerusalem and Jack Jeffery in Cairo contributed to this report.

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For more AP coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war