GAZA STRIP, Palestine
Hamas said it was engaged in
“heavy fighting” with Israeli troops inside northern Gaza Sunday, as besieged
residents were again warned to flee southward.Black smoke ascends from the Gaza Strip amid heavy bombardment of the Israeli army on the Palestinian enclave.
After weeks of ferocious
airstrikes, Israel has declared a new “stage” in a war that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu warned would be “long and difficult.”
Late Sunday Israel’s military
released footage that purported to show a significant number of tanks, infantry
and artillery operating in Palestinian territory.
The military claimed to have
struck more than “450 terror targets, including operational command centers,
observation posts, and anti-tank missile launch posts.”
Hamas said its Ezzedine
Al-Qassam Brigades were already “engaged in heavy fighting... with the invading
occupation forces.”
With a fierce door-to-door
urban war expected, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari told Palestinian
civilians to go south “to a safer area.”
It is now 23 days since Hamas
gunmen launched a wave of bloody cross-border raids against homes, communities,
farms and security posts inside Israel.
An estimated 1,400 people,
mostly civilians, were killed and 239 people were taken hostage, according to
the latest Israeli tallies.Israeli troops gather near the border with Gaza before entering the Palestinian strip on October 29, 2023, amid ongoing battles between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.
Israel has vowed to free the
hostages, track down those responsible and “eradicate” Hamas, a Palestinian
Islamist movement that has governed Gaza since 2007.
But there is deep and growing
international concern about the toll of Israel’s campaign on Gaza’s two-plus
million residents.
The territory is under siege,
with people unable to leave and only a limited amount of humanitarian aid
allowed in.
Meanwhile, Israel has carried
out one of the most intense bombing campaigns in recent memory.
The Hamas-run health ministry
in Gaza says more than 8,000 people, mainly civilians and half of them children
have already been killed.
Inside Gaza’s maze of streets,
rubble and hulled-out buildings, there is a growing sense of panic, fear and
desperation.
Ibrahim Shandoughli, a
53-year-old from Jabaliya in northern Gaza, asked why he would head south when
that area is also being bombed.
“Where do you want us to
evacuate to? All the areas are dangerous,” he said.
Etidal Al-Masri was among
those who fled after Israel told residents in the north to leave.
But she still struggles to
find even the basics amid shortages of food, water and medicine.
Gazans “must now queue for
bread, toilets and even for sleep,” she said.
On Sunday, the desperation
appeared to boil over.
The United Nations reported
that “thousands of people” had ransacked several of its warehouses looking for
tinned food, flour, oil and hygiene supplies.
Only a trickle of aid has been
allowed to cross the border from Egypt.
The UN said 33 trucks carrying
water, food, and medical supplies had entered Gaza on October 29.
It is one of the largest
deliveries to date, but still far short of the 100-a-day aid groups say is
needed.
International Criminal Court
lead prosecutor Karim Khan told Israel on Sunday that preventing access to
humanitarian aid could be a “crime.”
“Impeding relief supplies as
provided by the Geneva conventions may constitute a crime within the court
jurisdiction,” Khan told reporters in Cairo.
He said he wanted “to
underline clearly to Israel that there must be discernible efforts without
further delay to make sure civilians” in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory
“receive basic food, medicines.”
In a phone call with Netanyahu
on Sunday, US President Joe Biden also underscored the need to “immediately and
significantly” increase the flow of aid.
And while the White House has
welcomed the gradual return of cell phone and Internet services that had been
cut for days, it had a sharp warning for Israel’s leaders.
The “burden” lies with Israel
to distinguish between militants and innocent civilians in Gaza, US National
Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN.
This as the United Nations
said all hospitals in the north of Gaza had received evacuation orders, despite
sheltering thousands of patients and more than 117,000 people who had become
internally displaced because of the bombardment.
The Palestinian Red Crescent
Society reported repeated strikes around Al-Quds hospital in central Gaza.
Mohamed Al-Talmas, who has
taken shelter in Gaza’s biggest hospital Al-Shifa, said “the ground shook” with
intense Israeli raids.
Washington has also expressed
deep concern about the war spilling over, as Israel’s enemies — and in
particular an Iran-allied “axis of resistance” — step up actions across the
Middle East.
Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi
has warned Israel’s “crimes have crossed the red lines, which may force
everyone to take action.”
Since Hamas’s attack on
October 7, Iran-backed groups have launched attacks from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq
and Syria.
Skirmishes have intensified on
the Israeli-Lebanese border with Iran-backed Hamas ally Hezbollah.
On Sunday militants in south
Lebanon fired rockets toward Israel, which has responded with strikes.
The Israel Defense Forces also
said they had “struck military infrastructure in Syrian territory” in response
to launches “toward Israeli territory.”
Inside Israel, where shocked
residents still face daily rocket attacks, much of the focus is on the hostages
abducted by Hamas.
Hamas has released four
prisoners and offered to release more as part of a swap for Palestinians
detained in Israel.
It has also claimed “almost
50” hostages were killed by Israeli strikes — a claim that was impossible to
verify but has caused anguish to those praying for their loved ones to return.
“We demanded that no action be
taken that endangers the fate of our family members,” said Meirav Leshem Gonen,
the mother of hostage Romi Gonen.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav
Gallant accused Hamas of playing “psychological games.”
“Hamas is cynically using those who are dear to us — they understand the pain and the pressure,” he said.
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