Published October 30,2023
Israeli troops and armor pushed deeper into northern and central Gaza on Monday, as the U.N. and medical staff warned that airstrikes are hitting closer to hospitals where tens of thousands of Palestinians have sought shelter alongside thousands of wounded.
Video obtained by the Associated Press showed an Israeli tank and bulldozer in central Gaza blocking the territory’s main north-south highway, which the Israeli military earlier told Palestinians to use to escape the expanding ground offensive.
When asked whether forces had positioned on the road, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said “we expanded our operations” but would not comment on specific deployments.
The video shows a car approaching an earth barrier across the road. The car stops and turns around. As it heads away, the tank appears to open fire, and an explosion engulfs the car. The Gaza Health Ministry later said three people were killed.
The Israeli advances put their forces on both sides of Gaza City and the surrounding areas of northern Gaza, in what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called a “second stage” in the war ignited by Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 incursion. Casualties on both sides are expected to rise sharply as Israeli forces and Palestinian militants battle in dense residential areas.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the north and would no longer be able to escape if the north-south highway is blocked. Around 117,000 displaced people are staying in hospitals in northern Gaza, alongside thousands of patients and staff, hoping they will be safe from strikes, according to U.N. figures.
Most residents heeded Israel’s orders to flee to the southern part of the besieged territory, but many stayed in part because Israel has also bombarded targets in so-called safe zones.
The death toll among Palestinians passed 8,000, mostly women and minors, the Gaza Health Ministry said. The toll is without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. More than 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes.
Over 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, mainly civilians killed during Hamas’ initial attack, also an unprecedented figure.
Israeli forces appeared to be driving deeper into Gaza from the north. Video released Monday by the military showed armored vehicles moving among buildings and soldiers taking positions inside a house.
The military said Monday that overnight its troops had killed dozens of militants who attacked from inside buildings and tunnels, and that strikes had destroyed a building Hamas was using as a staging post. It said that in the last few days, it had struck more than 600 militant targets, including weapons depots and anti-tank missile launching positions. The reports of targeting could not be independently confirmed.
RELATED: Israeli tanks enter Gaza City which is ‘on the brink of social collapse’, aid workers warn as IDF troops are pelted with rocks as they also carry out raids on Palestinian armed groups in West Bank
Published October 30,2023
- Fears for the more than 2.2 million living in the small territory are rising rapidly
- UN official raised concerns about potential for infectious diseases in enclave
Israeli tanks entered the edge of Gaza city today, while IDF troops were pelted with rocks as they carried out raids against armed Palestinian groups in the West Bank.
The signs that the Jewish state was stepping up its military operations in the region came as a UN official warned the Gaza Strip was on the bring of social collapse, with mobs looting warehouses for food and families forced to drink dirty water.
Fears for the more than 2.2 million living in the small territory are rising rapidly as Israel presses on with the ‘second stage’ of its war to eliminate Hamas.
The Israeli military said it had killed ‘dozens’ of the terror group’s fighters overnight in clashes inside Gaza as it stepped up its assault, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned would be ‘long and difficult. Hamas also said its fighters were engaged in ‘heavy fighting’ with Israeli forces in northern Gaza.
In response to the terror attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7 which killed at least 1,400 people, the IDF launched a relentless retaliatory bombardment which the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip says has killed 8,000 civilians.
Gaza’s population in the north of the territory – some 1.1 million people – have been ordered to evacuate south in anticipation of an Israeli ground offensive, plunging the region even deeper into a humanitarian crisis.
RELATED: Live updates | Israeli military intensifies strikes on Gaza including underground targets
SDEROT, ISRAEL – OCTOBER 28: Smoke rises from an explosion in Gaza on October 28, 2023 seen from Sderot, Israel. In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas that left 1,400 dead and 200 kidnapped, Israel launched a sustained bombardment of the Gaza Strip and threatened a ground invasion to vanquish the militant group that governs the Palestinian territory. But the fate of the hostages, Israelis and foreign nationals who are being held by Hamas in Gaza, as well as international pressure over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, have complicated Israel’s military response to the attacks. A timeline for a proposed ground invasion remains unclear. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Published October 29,2023
Internet and phone connectivity disrupted by Israel’s heavy bombardment of Gaza were restored for many people on Sunday, even as the Israeli military intensified its strikes on the besieged enclave from the land, air and sea.
Live updates By The Associated Press | Israeli military intensifies strikes on Gaza including underground targets
Internet and phone connectivity disrupted by Israel’s heavy bombardment of Gaza were restored for many people on Sunday, even as the Israeli military intensified its strikes on the besieged enclave from the land, air and sea.
The Israeli strikes had knocked out most communications in the territory late Friday and largely cut off its 2.3 million people from the world. Communications were restored to many in Gaza early Sunday, according to the telecoms company Paltel, Internet-access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmation on the ground.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday called the 3-week-old Israel-Hamas war a fight for Israel’s existence and said “‘Never again’ is now.”
The Palestinian death toll passed 7,700, most of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 110 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
More than 1,400 people were slain in Israel during a surprise incursion by Hamas militants, including at least 310 soldiers, according to the Israeli government. At least 229 hostages were taken into Gaza, and four hostages have been released.
