This Monday, Israel intensified its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. As air and artillery strikes continued to hit the territory in the early hours, Israeli troops, backed by tanks, helicopters and drones, advanced towards the Palestinian enclave. The start of the ground attack gave Washington more arguments to warn Tel Aviv to protect civilians, who urgently need fuel, food and clean water, as the war enters its fourth week.
The Israeli army claimed to have attacked more than 600 Hamas targets and killed dozens of its fighters, who barricaded themselves in civilian buildings and tunnels, without specifying the location, in the last 24 hours. According to military information, an Israeli plane bombed a “building belonging to the terrorist organization Hamas, with more than 20 agents inside.” Another Israeli plane attacked an anti-tank missile launcher, where there were an unknown number of Islamist fighters, in the area of ????Al Azhar University, in Gaza.
Images posted on social media on Monday showed an Israeli tank on a key road linking the north and south of the Gaza Strip firing at a car that was trying to turn around as it was traveling north on the road. Salah al Din, just south of Gaza City. The Israeli military has refused to reveal its positions.
In what appeared to be an effort to isolate the city, Israeli forces carried out dozens of airstrikes on its eastern side, witnesses told news agencies, with some reporting the roar of advancing tanks amid intense exchanges. of shots. To the west, where Israel displayed tanks on the Mediterranean coast on Sunday, the north-south coastal highway was hit several times, according to residents.
Many Palestinians have remained in Gaza City, fearful of losing their homes and worried about news of Israeli airstrikes further south. Israel began the announced land incursion into Gaza on Friday and reiterated calls for civilians to evacuate the north of the enclave, including hospitals, although health personnel assure that it is impossible to comply with Israel’s orders because the measures are not followed. of security and because there are no resources to evacuate the injured.
Medical officials at Al Shifa and Al Quds hospitals warned that airstrikes had hit positions near their buildings. The UN humanitarian office, OCHR, warned that 117,000 civilians are taking refuge along with thousands of patients and doctors in hospitals in the north. Israel has accused Hamas of locating command centers and other military infrastructure in Gaza hospitals, which the group denies. The Palestinian Red Crescent assured on Sunday that some 14,000 people have taken refuge in Al Quds, while there would be around 50,000 refugees in Al Shifa hospital, according to Palestinian authorities, adding that they were concerned about Israeli threats against the facilities.
Although Israel gave the order to civilians to evacuate to the south, the bombing also continues in this other half of the enclave. Thus, in the last few hours airstrikes could be heard in the southern cities of Rafah, near the Gaza border crossing with Egypt, the only one not blocked by Israel, as well as in the east of Khan Younis, where Palestinian media said that Hamas confronted Israeli troops.
The phone and internet outages that blocked Gaza on Friday had eased and the OCHR said on Monday that services were “largely restored”, although telecommunications providers have said some areas in the north were still cut off.
Hostilities between Israel and Hamas began on October 7 with the attack by the Palestinian Islamist group on Israeli soil, which left 1,400 dead, more than 5,400 injured and 239 hostages who were taken to Gaza. Since then, the Israeli army has bombed Gaza in retaliation, which since Friday has also resulted in ground attacks, which has left more than 8,300 dead, most of them women and children, and more than 21,000 injured.
