2023-10-28 05:25:00
Ground fighting rages Saturday in the Gaza Strip, target of unprecedented Israeli strikes three weeks following the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian movement Hamas, and cut off from the world due to the shutdown of telecommunications and Internet.
The UN said it feared an “avalanche of human suffering” in the besieged Palestinian territory, and the General Assembly of the international organization adopted a resolution on Friday calling for “an immediate humanitarian truce”. A non-binding text welcomed by Hamas but rejected by Israel, which continues to shell Gaza and carry out ground incursions there.
“We are facing Israeli ground incursions in Beit Hanoun (north) and al-Boureij (center). Heavy fighting is underway,” Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said Friday evening in a statement.
Follow the latest information live:
07:45: The Israeli army announces having struck 150 underground targets
The Israeli army announced on Saturday that it had “hit 150 underground targets” in the north of the Gaza Strip during a night of very intense bombardment.
Israel is convinced that the Palestinian Islamist movement directs and organizes its operations from a gigantic network of underground tunnels.
“Overnight, IDF warplanes struck 150 underground targets in the northern Gaza Strip, including tunnels used by terrorists, underground combat sites and other underground infrastructure. Several Hamas terrorists were killed,” said the statement issued following a night of intense Israeli raids once morest the territory.
The Israeli army also claims to have killed a Hamas official who was in charge of “paramotors, drones, detection equipment and air defense”.
“Asem Abu Rakaba took part in organizing the massacre in communities bordering the Gaza Strip on October 7,” “he led the terrorists who infiltrated Israel with paramotors and was responsible for the attacks of drones on IDF surveillance posts,” the statement said.
The bombings continued on Saturday in the Gaza Strip, the target of unprecedented Israeli strikes three weeks following the massacre perpetrated by the Palestinian Islamic movement which left more than 1,400 dead, mostly civilians, according to the Israeli authorities.
According to the army, 229 hostages, Israeli, binational or foreign, were taken to Gaza by Hamas, which has since released four women.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 7,326 people, mostly civilians including more than 3,000 children, have been killed in Gaza in Israeli retaliatory bombings since October 7.
The Gaza Strip has been cut off from the world since Friday due to the shutdown of telecommunications and the internet.
07:20: Twenty-nine journalists, mainly Palestinian, died in the violence in Gaza
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the resumption of violence in Gaza, 29 journalists have been killed in the region, a tally from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) revealed on Friday.
CPJ confirms the deaths of 24 Palestinian journalists, four Israelis and one Lebanese. At least eight others were injured, while nine journalists were missing or arrested. The organization is still investigating “numerous” unconfirmed reports regarding other victims.
The organization also expressed concern over the disruption of communications in the Gaza Strip and warned of the lack of factual information regarding the conflict, which allows propaganda and disinformation to take over. on it, she emphasizes.
07:10 a.m.: The Bundeswehr mobilizes 1,000 soldiers to evacuate German nationals
The German army has 1,000 soldiers on standby for possible evacuations of Germans in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to sources at the DPA news agency.
Most of the units, including special forces of the Royal Navy (KSM), are sent to Cyprus, where the Bundeswehr has set up a command center for evacuation operations.
Other special forces, those of the army (KSK), are deployed in Jordan.
07:00: Communications cut in Gaza risks hiding “mass atrocities”, HRW warns
The cutoff of telecommunications and the internet in the Gaza Strip subject to intense Israeli bombardment risks “serving as a cover for mass atrocities”, the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Saturday. .
“This blackout of information risks serving as a cover for mass atrocities and contributing to impunity for human rights violations,” lamented HRW official Deborah Brown in a statement.
Amnesty International, for its part, said it had lost contact with its staff in Gaza. “This communications blackout means it will be even more difficult to obtain critical information and evidence regarding the human rights violations and war crimes committed once morest Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and to hear directly from those who are suffering these violations,” lamented the NGO.
NetBlocks, an internet access monitoring service, reported a “collapse of connectivity in the Gaza Strip.”
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), several UN agencies have lost contact with their teams. Humanitarian operations and hospital activity “cannot continue without communications,” alarmed Lynn Hastings, OCHA humanitarian coordinator, in a press release.
The Palestinian Red Crescent also announced on by the Israeli authorities.
“The disruptions are affecting the central emergency number 101 and hampering the arrival of ambulances to the injured” amid the strikes, the Red Crescent added, saying it was “deeply concerned” regarding the ability of its doctors to continue providing care in these conditions, as well as for the safety of its staff.
06:30: WHO loses contact with staff in Gaza Strip
The World Health Organization (WHO) has lost contact with its staff, health facilities and other partners in the Gaza Strip, its director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X (formerly Twitter).
“This siege makes me very concerned for their safety and the immediate health risks for vulnerable patients,” writes the official, who calls for the immediate protection of civilians and access for humanitarian aid.
Earlier, the Palestinian telecommunications company Jawwal reported that all communications were out of service due to intensive bombardment by the Israeli army. The Palestinian Red Crescent also announced to the X that it was no longer in contact with operations centers and teams in the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli army announced on Friday that it would expand its ground operations once morest Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
06:00: Two drones injure six in Egypt, Israel accuses the Houthis
Six people were injured following two drones fell on Friday in Egyptian Sinai bordering Israel, at war with Palestinian Hamas in Gaza, the Egyptian army reported, while Israel blamed the Yemeni Houthis.
“An unidentified drone crashed Friday near a building adjacent to the hospital in Taba,” a Red Sea town located at the northeastern tip of Sinai and where there is a border crossing to Israel. , “resulting in six minor injuries,” said its spokesperson on Facebook.
In the evening, he specified that there had been “two drones coming from the south of the Red Sea”, the southern entrance of which runs along Yemen. “One fell in Taba and the other was targeted outside Egyptian airspace in the Gulf of Aqaba,” a Jordanian town near Taba, “and some of these debris fell on an area not inhabited in Noueiba”, further south, added this spokesperson.
For its part, the Israeli air force said it had “thwarted an air threat in the Red Sea area and intercepted hostile targets”.
Lior Haiat, spokesperson for Israeli Foreign Affairs, accused the Houthis, the Yemeni rebels supported by Iran, close to Hamas, of having launched these drones to “harm Israel”.
Images broadcast on local media or social networks show a damaged building and several vehicles blown up nearby in Taba.
The Sinai desert peninsula is bordered at its northwest tip by the Gaza Strip and shares its eastern border with Israel.
Egypt, historic mediator between Palestinians and Israelis and which holds the only opening to the world of Gaza which is not in the hands of Israel, has found itself on the front line since October 7.
On Sunday, the Israeli army announced that it had fired one of its tanks “by mistake” at an Egyptian position on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip. Egypt reported the incident as well as the Israeli army’s apologies, reporting “light injuries” in its ranks.
On Wednesday, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi reviewed his troops in Suez, at the entrance to the Sinai, calling for “reason” and “patience”, while urging his men to “always be ready”.
1698475419
#IsraeliPalestinian #conflict #ground #fighting #massive #bombings #Gaza #Israeli #army #announces #struck #underground #targets #DIRECT
