2023-11-03 07:27:18
The Israeli military says it killed several Hamas terrorists in fierce night-time fighting in the Gaza Strip. Soldiers from the 13th Battalion of the Golani Brigade and armored troops from the 53rd Battalion fought once morest a number of terrorist commandos during the night, the Israeli military announced on Telegram on Friday morning.
The soldiers gave the fighters a long battle under heavy fire, it was said, without providing any information regarding the location of the fighting. The terrorists fired anti-tank missiles, detonated explosives and tried to climb onto Israeli soldiers’ vehicles. They were killed in the process. At the same time, the ground troops launched air strikes with combat aircraft and artillery, it said. The terrorists were killed and the danger to the troops was averted.
At the same time, the Israeli army had to increase the number of Israeli soldiers killed on Friday morning. The armed forces released the names of four more soldiers killed in fighting in the Gaza Strip. This brought the number of soldiers killed to 23.
Netanyahu sees “peak of battle”
Already on Thursday evening, the military spoke of having encircled Gaza City from all sides. “The troops have completed the encirclement of Gaza City, the center of the Hamas terrorist organization,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said. During the day, the military and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the stages of the advance on Gaza City. Netanyahu spoke of Israel being “at the height of the battle.”
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At almost the same time, Hamas’s military wing threatened that the invasion of the Gaza Strip would become a “curse” for the Israeli troops. “More of their soldiers will return home in body bags,” said a spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades.
According to Hamas, at least 27 people were killed in one of the Israeli attacks in Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza City near a UN school on Thursday. There were also a “large number” of injured, said the Hamas-run health ministry. The figures might not be independently verified.
Blinken wants to call for ceasefires
In view of the Israeli advance, a ceasefire currently seems unlikely. Nevertheless, US Secretary of State Blinken wants to campaign for such a policy during his visit to Israel on Friday. In addition to a fundamental commitment to support Israel, he will push for “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting in the Gaza Strip, allow additional humanitarian aid into the Strip and create a better environment for the possible release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas, Blinken said before his arrival in Israel.
Archyde.com/Jonathan Ernst US Secretary of State Blinken landed once more in Israel on Friday morning
The US Secretary of State’s plane landed in Tel Aviv on Friday morning. A meeting with Netanyahu is planned for the morning. Blinken is then scheduled to meet with members of the Israeli War Cabinet, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog and opposition leader Jair Lapid.
USA searches for hostages with drones
The release of hostages is also in the national interest of the United States. Washington assumes that among the more than 200 hostages kidnapped by Hamas there are ten US citizens whose whereregardings are unknown. According to insiders, the US has been flying surveillance drones over the Gaza Strip for a week in search of hostages.
Numerous other countries are also trying to free nationals who are being held hostage by Hamas. Thailand, for example, announced that it would rely on Iran to mediate, among other things, for the release of the 23 Thai citizens.
Israel sends Palestinians back to Gaza Strip
While in recent days foreign citizens have been able to leave the Gaza Strip for Egypt via the Rafah border crossing, Israel announced that it would send Palestinian workers back to the Gaza Strip. There will be “no more Palestinian workers from the Gaza Strip” in Israel, the Israeli security cabinet said Thursday evening. “The workers from the Gaza Strip who were in Israel on the day the war began will be sent back to Gaza,” and Israel is breaking off contact with the Palestinian territory, it said.
According to the Israeli Civil Affairs Authority in the Occupied Territories (COGAT), around 18,500 people from the Gaza Strip have work permits in Israel. The authority did not say how many Palestinian workers were in Israel when the war began and would be affected by the repatriation. According to the Archyde.com news agency, eyewitnesses reported on Friday morning that the first people were leaving Israel for the Gaza Strip via the Kerem Shalom border crossing.
Palestinian Authority should no longer receive money for Gaza
Israel’s security cabinet also wants to deduct all funds intended for the Gaza Strip from payments to the Palestinian Authority (PA). The statement did not say whether Israel would resume the remaining millions of dollars in payments to the West Bank Autonomous Authority. According to several media reports, the security cabinet has decided this.
According to the information, the amount now withheld amounts to the equivalent of almost 24 million euros. Israel’s right-wing finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced earlier this week that he would temporarily freeze payments to the PA for allegedly supporting the attack by Islamist terrorists on October 7th. The terrorist organization Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip, is largely responsible for the major attack.
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