The Israeli army launched a new operation in the al-Bureij refugee district in the central part of the Gaza Strip, according to media reports on Tuesday evening.
In addition to the air force, ground troops are also involved, they say. The army had already been in the area at the beginning of this year, but withdrew, the Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement is still strong in the densely populated area. Israel has set itself the goal of militarily destroying the terrorist organization.
The military announced on Tuesday that a Hamas facility at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) school in al-Bureij had been attacked with a drone the night before. The Islamists had planned numerous attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers from there, the report said.
The information could not be independently verified.
According to media reports, Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi had complained last month about the lack of plans to establish a civilian administration in the embattled Gaza Strip.
The lack of a political strategy for the post-war period has forced the Israeli army to repeatedly fight in places in the Gaza Strip that it had previously captured and from which it had withdrawn.
