Fighting rages in Gaza as Israel looks at new phase of war

Israel pulled tanks out of some Gaza City districts on Monday, residents said, as it announced plans to shift tactics and cut back on troop numbers, but fighting raged elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave along with intense bombardment.

Israel says the war in Gaza, which has reduced much of the territory to rubble, killing thousands and plunging its 2.3 million people into a humanitarian disaster, has many months to go.

But Israel has signaled a coming new phase in its offensive, with an official saying on Monday that the military would draw down forces inside Gaza this month and shift to a months-long phase of more localized “mopping up” operations.

The official said the troop reduction would allow some reservists to return to civilian life, shoring up Israel’s war-battered economy, and free up units in case of a wider conflict in the north with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah.

Artillery fire between Hezbollah and Israel has rattled the border since the start of the Gaza conflict, with Israel’s military saying it carried out an air strike on Monday, and any new escalation carries risks for a wider regional war.

Tehran-backed fighters in Yemen have attacked Red Sea shipping, drawing a U.S. military response, and an Iranian warship has sailed into the waterway, Iranian media reported on Monday.

The Gaza war was triggered by a surprise Hamas attack on Israeli towns on Oct. 7 that Israel says killed 1,200 people. Palestinian health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza say Israel’s offensive there has killed more than 21,978 people.

The scale of suffering in Gaza, where the bombardment has driven almost all…