The Israeli military on Friday said its ground forces were “expanding their activity” as the army moved closer to a full-on ground invasion of the besieged Gaza Strip, where internet and mobile phone services were cut off amid reports of heavy bombing.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the army’s spokesperson, said aerial attacks had been targeting Hamas tunnels and other targets.
“In addition to the attacks that we carried out in recent days, ground forces are expanding their activity this evening,” he said. “The IDF is acting with great force … to achieve the objectives of the war.”
Israel has amassed hundreds of thousands of troops along the border with Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive against the Hamas militant group.
Shortly before the IDF announcement, Palestinian telecom provider Paltel said internet service in Gaza Strip has been cut off by Israeli bombardment.
Services were cut Friday evening following a heavy round of Israeli airstrikes that lit up the night sky.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, the main emergency service in Gaza, said it was cut off from its operations room in the strip because of the internet blackout and that landline and cellular communications had also been cut off.
“We are deeply concerned about the ability of our teams to continue providing their emergency medical services, especially since this disruption affects the central emergency number 101 and hinders the arrival of ambulance vehicles to the wounded and injured,” read a statement from the Red Crescent.
The Netblocks internet observatory confirmed connectivity in the Gaza strip has broken down.
“Live network data show a collapse in connectivity in the Gaza Strip … amid reports of heavy bombardment,” the observatory said.
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Israeli forces backed by fighter jets and drones had already carried out its second ground raid into Gaza in as many days and struck targets on the outskirts of Gaza City, the military said Friday, as it prepares for a widely expected ground invasion of the Hamas-ruled territory.
The Israeli military said ground forces raided inside Gaza, striking dozens of militant targets over the past 24 hours. It said aircraft and artillery bombed targets in Shijaiyah, a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Gaza City.
The military said the soldiers exited the territory without suffering any casualties.
The IDF’s Hagari said the raids enable forces to “uncover the enemy,” to kill militants and to remove explosives and launch pads. The aim is “to prepare the ground for the next stages of the war,” he added.
The next stage is a ground offensive that “will take a long time,” Israel Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told a small group of foreign reporters on Friday. Gallant said the ground invasion would include large forces, backed by airstrikes, and that it would be followed by a third phase of lower-intensity fighting, as Israel destroys “pockets of resistance.”
The Palestinian death toll has soared past 7,300 as Israel has carried out waves of devastating airstrikes in response to the Hamas attack. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which tracks the toll, released a detailed list of names and ID numbers on Thursday, to counter suggestions by U.S. President Joe Biden and others that it was inflating casualty figures.
The airstrikes have flattened entire neighbourhoods, causing a level of death and destruction unseen in the last four wars between Israel and Hamas. More than a million people have fled their homes, with many heeding Israeli orders to evacuate to the south, despite continuing Israeli strikes across the sealed-off territory.
Featured VideoDespite Israel’s continuing campaign of devastating airstrikes targeting militants that Hamas says have killed more than 7,000 people, rockets continue to damage areas as far away as Tel Aviv. Israeli tanks ventured into Gaza for a brief incursion overnight Wednesday, which Israel says was in preparation for the next phase of the war.
More than 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians, were slain during the initial Hamas attack, including several Canadians. Hamas is holding at least 229 captives inside Gaza, according to Israel, including men, women, children and older adults.
Palestinian militants have fired thousands of rockets into Israel since the war began.
Elsewhere, Egyptian state media reported that six people were wounded when a rocket slammed into a medical building in the town of Taba, on the border with Israel. It was not immediately known who fired the projectile.
Israel’s Hagari said “an aerial threat was identified in the area of the Red Sea,” which appeared to be the source of the blast in Egypt. He said fighter jets were dispatched to the area and that Israel, Egypt and the U.S. were tightening their defences in the region.
Featured VideoIsraeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and other Israelis are arming themselves at the encouragement of the government in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks. And that’s raising concerns about whether the practice will protect lives, or escalate to more violence.
Israel also said it killed a commander for the military wing of the militant Islamic Jihad group in an overnight raid in West Bank. Israeli forces said they responded with live fire when assailants hurled explosive devices and shot at troops.
Four Palestinians died in the raids, West Bank officials said.
Canada, U.S. to urge UN to condemn Hamas
Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations is expected to speak later today about a UN effort to establish a temporary pause in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, as the UN General Assembly debate a resolution on the issue of humanitarian pauses or ceasefire agreements in the coastal enclave.
Bob Rae will take the podium on Day 2 of a special emergency session of the assembly.
The resolution also calls on the two sides to comply with international humanitarian law and to allow essential supplies and services into the war-torn region.
Canada is also proposing an amendment to the resolution that would expressly condemn the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel that triggered the latest crisis.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Canada supports the idea of “humanitarian pauses” to allow aid into the Gaza Strip and the evacuation of civilians and foreign nationals.
A major humanitarian crisis is now blooming in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory of Gaza, home to 2.3 million people who face food, water and fuel shortages.
Unlike in the Security Council where resolutions on Gaza aid failed this week, no country in the the 193-member UN General Assembly holds a veto in the General Assembly. Resolutions are non-binding, but carry political weight.
The draft resolution submitted by Arab states on Friday called for a ceasefire.
At a UN meeting on Gaza on Thursday, Israel’s Ambassador Gilad Erdan told the world body, “A ceasefire means giving Hamas time to rearm itself, so they can massacre us again.”
“This is not a war with the Palestinians. Israel is at war with the genocidal jihadist Hamas terror organization,” he added.
But Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said 70 per cent of those killed in Gaza were children and women.
“Is this the war some of you are defending? Can this war be defended? These are crimes. This is barbarism,” he said.
More than 613,000 people were estimated to have been made homeless by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and were being sheltered by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The same agency has said it may run out of fuel within days. Gaza’s sole power station shut down for lack of fuel days after the start of the war, and Israel has barred all fuel deliveries, saying it believes Hamas would steal them for military purposes.
“The siege means that food, water and fuel — basic commodities — are being used to collectively punish more than two million people, among them, a majority of children and women,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told reporters.
Featured Video“What’s the point of bombarding an entire population … half of whom are children?” said Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories. Albanese says Israel is not only committing war crimes against Palestinians, but also crimes against humanity.
Lazzarini said 57 UNRWA workers had been killed in Israeli bombardments.
Gallant said Israel believes that Hamas would confiscate any fuel that enters. The Israeli defence minister said Hamas uses generators to pump air into its hundreds of kilometres of tunnels, which originate in civilian areas.
“For air, they need oil. For oil, they need us,” he said.
Lynne Hastings, the UN aid co-ordinator for the Palestinian territories, declined to comment on Gallant’s remarks, saying “we don’t know what Hamas has or doesn’t have.”
“We have been bringing fuel into Gaza in co-ordination with the government of Israel for decades. We know fuel is a high-risk item and are working with the Israelis to make sure what we will be using for our operations is done securely,” she said.
A medical team and 10 aid trucks entered the Gaza Strip on Friday via the Rafah crossing with Egypt, carrying water, food and medicine, a Palestinian border official told Reuters.