2023-10-28 09:00:58
Intense fighting was raging in Gaza on Saturday morning as Israel’s expansion of ground operations cut off communications in the Palestinian territory three weeks after the deadliest attack in the country’s history. UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that “without a fundamental change in the situation, the people of Gaza will suffer an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering,” while the General Assembly called for an “immediate humanitarian truce.”
“We are facing an Israeli ground incursion in Beit Banoun (northern Gaza Strip) and in eastern Bureij (center) and there are violent clashes on the ground,” the Ezzedine al-Qassam brigades, the armed wing of the Gaza Strip, said in a statement. Islamist movement Hamas, which rules in Gaza.
LOOK: Last minute of the war between Israel and Hamas LIVE: news from Gaza, ground operation, bombings, deaths and more
With tens of thousands of troops on the Gaza border ahead of the ground invasion, Israeli forces also made limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday nights.
In this undated image taken from a video released by the Israel Defense Forces, a line of Israeli tanks is shown during a raid into the Gaza Strip. (Israel Defense Forces via AP).
Hamas further stated that Israel “cut off communications and most of the internet,” “to carry out massacres with retaliatory bombings by air, land and sea.”
The organization Human Rights Watch warned that “this information blockade creates the risk of covering up mass atrocities and contributing to impunity for human rights violations.”
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“Why are they bombing us?”
The war began on October 7 with the raid of Hamas commandos who, according to Israel, killed more than 1,400 people in the south of the country, mostly civilians, and kidnapped more than 220 taken hostage to Gaza.
In retaliation, Israel unleashed a campaign of relentless bombing, which Hamas says left more than 7,300 dead, including more than 3,000 children.
The Islamist group stated that “about 50” hostages were killed by the Israeli bombings.
Israel also imposed a practically total siege of that territory of 362 km2 and more than 2.3 million inhabitants.
On a street in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, a neighbor, 50-year-old Om Walid Basal, asked why her building was bombed.
Flares fired by the Israeli army illuminate the sky east of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 27, 2023. (Photo by SAID KHATIB / AFP).
“This was our house, we lived here with our children, it was full of children,” he said. “Why are they bombing us? Why do they destroy our homes?”
The Israeli army indicated that it increased shelling “very significantly” and announced that it would “expand its ground operations,” after two straight nights of tank raids on Wednesday and Thursday.
“And [el primer ministro israelí, Benjamin] Netanyahu decides to enter Gaza tonight, the resistance is prepared,” a Hamas leader, Ezzat al Risheq, declared on Telegram. “The land of Gaza will swallow the remains of the” Israeli soldiers, he added.
Thousands of people demonstrated on Friday in the occupied West Bank and several Arab countries in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.
Red Cross team
This Friday, a Red Cross team of six doctors accompanied by six aid trucks entered the Strip for the first time since the start of the war, indicated the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Since October 21, just over 70 trucks have entered the Strip from Egypt, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) indicated on Thursday.
A very insufficient amount for the organization, which especially requires fuel to operate the health infrastructure.
Before the “total siege” imposed by Israel on October 9, some 500 trucks arrived at the enclave daily.
“Many more [personas] They will die soon as a result of the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip” by Israel, said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Hamas targets destroyed
The Israeli infantry carried out a “selective incursion into the central sector of the Gaza Strip” on the night of Thursday to Friday, supported by “fighters and drones,” before leaving the territory, the army announced.
In that operation, he added, Hamas targets were bombed “throughout the Gaza Strip” and rocket launching ramps and command centers of the Palestinian movement were destroyed.
The Israeli military accused Hamas of using hospitals in Gaza as operations centers to direct attacks.
The Islamist movement immediately considered that these were “totally unfounded” accusations.
Between the bombings and fuel shortages, 12 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals have had to close, and UNRWA says it has “significantly reduced its operations.”
Nearly 1.4 million people fled to the south of the Strip in recent weeks, although some 30,000 returned to the north in recent days, according to the UN.
“We return to die in our homes. It will be more dignified,” said Abdallah Ayyad, who returned to Gaza City with his wife and his five daughters.
The war raised fears of a regional conflagration. Iran, a powerful supporter of Hamas, issued several warnings to the United States, an ally of Israel.
Washington attacked two ammunition depots in Syria belonging to militias linked to Iran, US authorities reported on Friday.
Meanwhile, more than one hundred Palestinians have died in the West Bank, due to attacks and clashes with the Israeli army since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
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