DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops surrounded Gaza City early Monday, cutting off the northern part of the besieged territory as communications were gradually restored across the Gaza Strip after several hours of disruption overnight.
Troops are expected to enter the city on Monday or Tuesday, Israeli media reported, and militants who have been preparing for years are expected to fight street by street using a vast network of tunnels. Losses on both sides are likely to increase in the months-long war that has already killed more than 9,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
About 1.5 million Palestinians, or about 70% of the population, have fled their homeland since the war began with a bloody Hamas invasion of Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Food, medicine, fuel and water are running low, and United Nations-run schools turned emergency shelters are overwhelmed, with many sleeping outside on the streets.
Israel has so far rejected U.S. proposals for a pause in fighting to allow for humanitarian aid deliveries and the release of some of the estimated 240 prisoners seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 raid. Israel has also rejected calls for a broader ceasefire from increasingly alarmed Arab countries – including Jordan and Egypt, which made peace with the country decades ago.
A Jordanian military cargo plane airdropped medical aid to a field hospital in northern Gaza, King Abdullah II said early Monday. It appeared to be the first airdrop of its kind in the war, raising the possibility of another route of aid delivery to Gaza alongside Egypt’s Rafah border crossing.
In the north the situation remains grim. About 800,000 people have followed Israeli military orders and fled to the southern Gaza Strip, even as Israel has continued to carry out airstrikes in the area. At least 53 people were killed in attacks in the central and southern Gaza Strip – the supposed security zone – on Sunday.
Hundreds of thousands remain in Gaza City and other parts of the north. Around 2,000 people, many carrying only what they could hold in their arms, walked along Gaza’s main north-south highway on Sunday during an hours-long period in which the military had encouraged them to flee.
One man said they ran 500 meters (yards) with their hands raised as they passed Israeli troops. Another described seeing bodies along the road. “The children saw tanks for the first time. Oh world, have mercy on us,” said a Palestinian who declined to give his name.
The majority of the Gaza Strip’s population are descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled Israel or were displaced during the 1948 war that marked the creation of Israel. Palestinians are calling their exodus a Nakba, or catastrophe, and many fear a repeat as hundreds of thousands are displaced by the recent war.
The Israeli military said late Sunday it had separated the northern Gaza Strip from the south, calling it a “significant phase” in the war. It said a one-way corridor remained available for residents to escape south.
According to the military, 30 soldiers have been killed since the ground offensive began more than a week ago. Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel, disrupting daily life, although most of them are intercepted or crash-land in open areas. Tens of thousands of Israelis have been evacuated from communities near the unstable borders with Gaza and Lebanon.
Communications in Gaza fell late Sunday for the third time in the war, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel. Aid workers say the outages are making it even more difficult for civilians to get to safety or even call an ambulance.
The first sortie in Gaza lasted 36 hours and coincided with the ground invasion, the second a few hours. Paltel said service would be gradually restored on Monday.
Food, water and fuel for the generators that power hospitals are running low. Gaza’s only power plant had to be shut down shortly after the war broke out, and Israel did not allow fuel to enter because Hamas would steal it for military use.
The north of the Gaza Strip is facing a severe water shortage as there is no fuel to pump from municipal wells and Israel has shut off the region’s main pipeline. The U.N. humanitarian affairs office said seven water facilities across the Gaza Strip had been hit in the past two days and suffered “major damage,” raising the risk of a sewage flood. According to the United Nations, Israel has restored two water pipes in the central and southern Gaza Strip.
Since October 21, over 450 trucks carrying food, water, medicine and other aid have been allowed to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt, but aid workers say this is not enough to meet growing needs in the area, which is home to around 2.3 Millions of Palestinians live.
The war has raised tensions as Israel and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group engaged in a firefight along the border.
Four civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon late Sunday, including three children, a local civil defense official and state media reported. The Israeli military said it attacked Hezbollah targets in response to anti-tank fire that killed an Israeli civilian. Hezbollah said it fired Grad rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon in response.
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Magdy reported from Cairo. Associated Press journalists Najib Jobain in Khan Younis, Amy Teibel in Jerusalem and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
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Complete AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war