2023-11-15 19:28:56
The clashes expanded in Gaza City as the Israeli army advanced deeper into the city. While the fighting intensified in multiple areas, the Israeli army announced control of Hamas leadership centers, while the Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed that they had killed soldiers and destroyed tanks and vehicles.
This was accompanied by the Israeli army tightening its siege on all hospitals in northern Gaza, and moved towards the only hospital that remained partially operational (Al-Baptist Hospital), in light of the deepening tragedy of the besieged residents remaining in Gaza without electricity, water, food, or medicine.
Citizens in Gaza City told Asharq Al-Awsat that they have become truly besieged with the arrival of the Israeli army to their areas and neighborhoods. They cannot find their basic needs and cannot move outside their homes due to Israeli targeting. According to the testimonies of residents in Gaza City, drones, tanks, and soldiers target everything that moves in the streets of Gaza, and citizens have been killed without anyone being able to reach them.
The Gaza war… Israel’s incursion and a disaster in hospitals
The Israeli forces arrived at Palestine Square in the center of the city, and penetrated into various areas of the Gaza Governorate, storming homes, killing, arresting, and interrogating Gazans in a scene reminiscent of what they are doing in the West Bank.
Israel is trying to completely control Gaza City in an attempt to create a security situation similar, it seems, to the West Bank, allowing its army to carry out incursions, raids, and killing at any time it wants.
A source in the Palestinian factions in Gaza City said, “The resistance leadership is aware of Israel’s attempt to create a new reality in the Gaza Strip, but its forces will not enjoy a minute of rest here, and they are facing fierce, ongoing and continuing resistance on all fronts and at all times, and they are suffering great losses.” The source added: “Gaza will resist them until the end, and will not surrender and will not raise the white flag.”
Searching for victims and survivors in the rubble in the Bureij camp in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday (AP)
On the 39th day of the war, the Al-Qassam Brigades, affiliated with Hamas, announced that its fighters had killed 9 Israeli soldiers, including 7 who were killed “from zero distance” north of Gaza City, and two soldiers “from zero distance” in Beit Hanoun. Al-Qassam said, in a series of statements, that it bombed Tel Aviv with a missile salvo, destroyed tanks, vehicles, and troop carriers, and targeted Israeli army concentrations with various anti-armor and anti-personnel weapons.
The Israeli army admitted that more of its soldiers were killed, and said that Sergeant Roy Marom and Major (res.) Raz Abu Alafia were killed, and four others were wounded, bringing the total number of soldiers killed in the ground operation north of Gaza to 46.
On the other hand, the Israeli army announced that its soldiers seized the central control centers and symbols of governance of the Hamas movement in Gaza City, and killed Al-Qassam members. An army statement said: “So far, the forces of the 162nd Division have found more than 160 tunnel openings, attacked regarding 2,800 terrorist infrastructure, and killed regarding 1,000 members and leaders of the terrorist organization (Hamas). During the last hours, operational control over Al-Shati camp was achieved. Within the framework of the division’s activity in the Gaza Strip, the forces of the 162nd Division penetrated strategic and vital properties of the terrorist organization (Hamas), including: Force Site 17, the Hamas security square, Al-Rantisi Hospital, which the terrorist organization used for military activities and the detention of kidnappers, and the Badr site, according to what was stated. In the Israeli advertisement.
A thermal bomb falls over Gaza on Tuesday (AP)
The statement also talked regarding controlling “the main police headquarters, an engineering college, the Gaza governor’s home building, training sites and security offices, in addition to the headquarters of the Central Qassam Brigade in Gaza City, which was headed by Ayman Nofal before he was assassinated early in the war.”
As the army continued the war, more hospitals went out of service.
Osama Hamdan, an official in the Hamas movement, said that the Israeli bombing and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip led to 25 hospitals out of 35 in the besieged Strip being out of service.
The Israeli army surrounds Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and says that the “Al-Qassam” command center is located underneath it, as well as Al-Rantisi, Al-Ayoun, Al-Nasr, Mental Health, and Jerusalem hospitals.
The army prevents any movement to and from the besieged hospitals, and on Monday night, it showed a video that it said was of a tunnel under Al-Rantisi Hospital and was being used for military purposes and to hold hostages, according to the claim of army spokesman Daniel Hagari, an account denied by Hamas and the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
As the siege of hospitals tightened, doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital were forced, on Tuesday, to bury the bodies of dozens of citizens in the outdoor square.
Journalists at the site said that citizens, medical and administrative teams volunteered to dig a mass grave in the complex’s courtyard, and were able to bury regarding 100 bodies.
There are intensive communications to remove patients and children from hospitals, but this seems almost impossible.
In parallel with the ground battles, Israel continued to bomb various areas in the Gaza Strip, including the Khan Yunis area in the southern Gaza Strip, which, according to the Israeli army, is supposed to be a safe area.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza announced, on Tuesday, “the number of martyrs has risen to 11,451 martyrs since the beginning of the Israeli aggression once morest our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the wounded to regarding 31,700 wounded, including 4,630 children, 3,130 women, and 682 elderly people, while the number of injuries reached regarding 29,000.” ».
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