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Israel has expanded its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country had begun a new phase in its “long and hard” war to destroy Hamas.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Sunday that Israel had sent more troops into the Gaza Strip overnight and fighting continued in northern Gaza.
“We are moving through the phases of the war according to our plan,” he said. “We are gradually expanding our ground activities.”
He spoke as telephone and internet connections were steadily being restored in Gaza, two days after a communications blackout that left many residents incommunicado.
UNRWA, the main U.N. agency providing aid to Palestinians in Gaza, said thousands of desperate Palestinians broke into their warehouses to confiscate wheat flour and other staples, a sign that civil order in the enclave was beginning to collapse.
Israel has been bombing the Gaza Strip for three weeks since the Hamas attack on the country on October 7 that killed at least 1,400 Israelis, the deadliest day in the country’s 75-year history. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages, both civilians and soldiers, whom it continues to hold.
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On Sunday, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry said the death toll in Gaza had risen to 8,005 Palestinians and 20,242 had been injured since the Israeli offensive began.
Israel sent troops and tanks into the Gaza Strip on Friday evening, accompanying the operation with what the UN described as “the strongest Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire” since the start of the war.
The IDF said on Sunday that its warplanes had struck more than 450 Hamas military targets across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including operational command centers, observation posts and anti-tank missile launch sites.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi announced on the social media platform
International concern is growing over the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and the many civilian casualties of the Israeli offensive.
Palestinians carry a victim after Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City © Mutasem Murtaja/PortalIsraeli authorities have been criticized for blocking most humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza, allowing only a small number of trucks per day, which the United Nations and other organizations say is responsible for the 2.3 million There were not enough people in the area.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said thousands of families in Gaza were “sleeping in makeshift shelters or in the open with little food and water.” It was said that hospitals were on the verge of collapse and sewage systems were no longer functioning.
Even Israel’s closest allies are expressing concerns. U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. was urging Israel to “make sure to distinguish between Hamas and the Palestinian people.”
“We do not condone the killing of innocent people, be they Palestinians, Israelis or others,” he told CNN.
He also told CBS that there must be “a political horizon for the Palestinian people, two states for two peoples, the right of Palestinians to live in security, dignity and equality.”
Smoke rises over the northern Gaza Strip after an Israeli airstrike © Hannibal Hanschke/EPA/ShutterstockThe International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it was “deeply disturbed” by reports that medical teams at Al-Quds Hospital in Gaza had been ordered to evacuate the hospital immediately.
“Evacuation of patients, including those in intensive care, life support patients and babies in incubators, is almost impossible, if not impossible, in the current situation,” the IFRC said. “Our teams are also reporting violent attacks and grenade attacks very close to the hospital, putting people at further risk.”
An IDF spokesman declined to comment, saying only that the army had asked all civilians to evacuate northern Gaza and “that’s where the hospital is.”
Médecins Sans Frontières, the medical humanitarian organization, said the northern Gaza Strip was “being razed to the ground while the entire strip is being hit and civilians have no place to seek shelter.”
It added: “The international community must take stronger action to urge Israel to stop the bloodshed.” People are being killed and driven from their homes, water and fuel are running out. The atrocity is on a scale never seen before in Gaza.”
Palestinians wait at a water point to fill up containers © Abed Rahim Khatib/dpaBut Col. Elad Goren, a senior officer at Cogat, the Israeli military agency responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, disputed international aid groups’ descriptions of the situation in Gaza.
He said there was enough food there to last “for the next few weeks,” medical supplies were still readily available and water was “fully accessible,” especially in southern Gaza.
“These are not normal values [of water for Gaza] But it meets basic humanitarian needs,” he said. He added that Israel plans to “dramatically increase” the amount of humanitarian aid allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt in the coming week.
Additional reporting by Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv