Israel said on Tuesday its forces attacked Hamas gunmen in a vast network of Islamist tunnels under Gaza, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected calls for a ceasefire to ease the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories.
The tunnel is a key objective for Israel as it expands ground operations inside Gaza to eliminate the ruling Hamas movement following its gun attack three weeks ago that Israeli authorities say killed more than 1,400 people.
“Over the last day, combined IDF combat forces struck about 300 targets, including anti-tank missile and rocket launching posts under the shaft, as well as military compounds in underground tunnels belonging to the terrorist organization Hamas,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF ) said in a statement.
Militants responded with anti-tank missiles and machine gun fire, he added.
“Soldiers kill terrorists and direct the air force to conduct real-time attacks on terror targets and infrastructure,” the IDF said.
A general view shows the inside of what the Israeli military says is a cross-border attack tunnel dug from Gaza into Israel. Reuters
Witnesses said Israeli forces targeted Gaza’s main north-south road on Monday and attacked Gaza City from two directions.
Israel said its army freed a soldier from Hamas custody.
Hamas, the armed Islamist group that governs Gaza, has so far released four civilians out of the 239 hostages Israel said it seized on Oct. 7.
The tunnel is important to Israel as it expands ground operations inside Gaza to eliminate the ruling Hamas movement. Reuters
Many of the hostages are believed to be held in the Hamas tunnel network.
The al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, said militants clashed early Tuesday with Israeli forces “storming the southern axis of Gaza, (including) with machine guns, and targeting four vehicles with al-Yassin 105 missiles,” referring to local production. anti-tank missiles.
Militants also targeted two Israeli tanks and a bulldozer in northwest Gaza with missiles, al-Qassam said.
Reuters could not confirm reports of the fighting. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.
Gaza health authorities say that 8,306 people, including 3,457 minors, have been killed in Israeli attacks since Oct. 7.
UN officials said more than 1.4 million of Gaza’s civilian population of about 2.3 million have been displaced.
A Palestinian fighter from the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, signals inside an underground tunnel in Gaza. Reuters
The rising death toll has prompted calls from the US, Israel’s main ally, other countries and the UN for a pause in the fighting to allow more humanitarian aid to reach the area.
Netanyahu said late Monday that Israel would not agree to end hostilities with Hamas in Gaza and would continue with its plan to eliminate the group.
“The call for a ceasefire is a call for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen,” Netanyahu said in a televised statement.
An Israeli tank moves inside the Gaza Strip, as seen from Israel on Oct. 31. 2023. Reuters
Military experts say Israeli forces are moving slowly in their ground offensive in part to keep open the possibility that Hamas militants will negotiate the release of the hostages.
The relative caution taken by the Israeli army and securing the territory’s fragments in the first days of the ongoing ground operation in Gaza is in contrast to the continuous airstrikes over the past three weeks in the Mediterranean area, as well as previous Israeli ground attacks there. .
‘DISASTER ON DISASTER’
Israel’s military says it has struck more than 600 militant targets in recent days in Gaza, where Palestinian civilians are in dire need of fuel, food and clean water.
Young Palestinians holding weapons walk in a tunnel during a military training graduation ceremony at a summer camp organized by the armed wing of Hamas, east of Gaza City. Reuters
The UN humanitarian office (OCHA) said that the water supply through a pipeline from Israel to southern Gaza was cut off on Monday “for unknown reasons”, and that repairs announced for another pipeline to central Gaza had not taken place.
“At the time of writing, no water is being provided to Gaza from Israel,” OCHA said on its website.
Fewer humanitarian aid trucks have reached the besieged enclave than needed, UN officials said, and public order has broken down with people raiding UN warehouses in search of food.
Flares fired by Israel illuminate the sky in Al-Sudaniya, a region northwest of Gaza on Oct. 30. 2023. Anatolia via Getty Images
That rendered four UN aid distribution centers and storage facilities unusable, the United Nations agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday.
“It was a disaster on top of a disaster. Health needs are increasing and our ability to meet those needs is decreasing,” said the World Health Organization’s regional emergencies chief Rick Brennan, reiterating international calls for a ceasefire to allow for greater humanitarian operations.
Aid trucks have been pouring into Gaza from Egypt for the past week through Rafah, the main crossing that does not border Israel.
The armed Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, is stationed in a tunnel in the Shujaya neighborhood of Gaza City, Gaza. Getty Images
It has been the main point of aid delivery since Israel imposed a “total siege” on Gaza after Oct. 7.
The White House said it was working to get more aid trucks to Gaza.
OUTLOOK
Hamas released a video on Monday showing three hostages seized by the Islamist movement on Oct. 7.
The women – identified by Netanyahu as Yelena Trupanob, Danielle Aloni and Rimon Kirsht – sat side by side against a blank wall, and Aloni delivered an angry message to the prime minister.
The Israeli army conducted a ground operation in the Gaza Strip on Oct. 29. 2023. Xinhua/Shutterstock
Netanyahu condemned the video as “brutal psychological propaganda” and said Israel’s ground campaign created the possibility of rescuing the hostages.
The conflict has led to worldwide demonstrations in support of the Palestinians, and antisemitic and Islamophobic harassment.
Biden administration officials, voicing concerns about reports of anti-Semitic incidents at US universities, met with American Jewish leaders on Monday to discuss steps to counter the surge, a White House official said.
In Russia, President Vladimir Putin accused the West and Ukraine of fomenting unrest inside Russia after rioters in the Muslim-majority region of Dagestan stormed an airport to “arrest” Jewish passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
