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Israeli troops and tanks continue to advance into the Gaza Strip, carrying out a major ground attack that began on Friday evening. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the offensive a “second phase” of the war to destroy Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza.
Israel has said very little about the incursion, which coincided with a near-total communications blackout in Gaza. On Sunday, cell phone and internet networks were restored so residents and observers could begin compiling information about the operation.
Videos, photos and satellite images confirmed by The Washington Post show some of the locations where Israeli tanks and troops appear to have advanced into the Gaza Strip. These open source images offer a glimpse into what happened as Gaza was plunged into digital darkness.
The Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom published a video on Saturday that appeared to show Israeli troops occupying a beachfront hotel two miles into the Gaza Strip. In the video, soldiers are seen holding an Israeli flag, and the man recording refers to the scene that took place three weeks after the “horrible crime,” referring to the Hamas attack on January 7 October geolocated by Younis Tirawi, who covers Palestinian affairs, and later confirmed by The Post.
The Israeli military released another video on Saturday showing armored vehicles entering the Gaza Strip along the northern border. New vehicle tracks were created in the same area sometime between Thursday and Saturday, according to a comparison of satellite images provided to The Post by Planet Labs. The tracks, about a mile long, appear north of As-Saifa in the northeast corner of Gaza, not far from the Israeli border. They can be identified by the paths that have been created or widened in the area, said Jamon Van Den Hoek and Corey Scher of the Decentralized Damage Mapping Group, a network of scientists who use remote sensing to map the physical effects of conflict after they had looked at the pictures.
On Monday, Palestinian journalist Youssef Saifi recorded a video that he said shows an Israeli tank firing at a civilian car on Salah al-Din Road, the main road between north and south Gaza. Photojournalist Bashar Talib, who was with Saifi and observed the scene, said in an interview that they were both “surprised” to encounter an Israeli tank on the street. The Post independently geolocated the video, which shows an explosion that Talib said killed three people.
A spokesman for Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the victims were taken, confirmed the three deaths.
Journalist Youssef Saifi filmed an Israeli tank firing on a car carrying civilians in Gaza on October 30. The car spun when it was hit. (Video: Yousef Basam via Storyful)
Miriam Berger, Hajar Harb and Jonathan Baran contributed to this report.