The Israeli army cut off northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged area on Monday and continued to bombard the region with airstrikes as ground troops prepared to attack densely populated Gaza City.
The Israel Defense Forces said airstrikes had destroyed 450 Hamas targets and the Israeli army had taken control of military areas in its escalating war against the terror group nearly a month after a deadly Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400.
Gaza health officials said that more than 10,000 Palestinians had been killed in the attack, without distinguishing between civilian and militant deaths.
Hamas claimed that 4,100 of the victims were children and 2,600 of them were women. The group, however, has been accused by the US of exaggerating its death toll.
An additional 2,300 people are said to be missing and believed to be buried under the rubble.
Israel says several Hamas commanders have been killed in recent attacks, and blames its enemy for civilian deaths because the group operates in residential areas.
A new phase of urban fighting is expected to dramatically increase the death toll in the conflict-ridden region. The region has not seen this much bloodshed since the Arab-Israeli War ended in 1949 following the creation of the Jewish state.
Palestinian children run as they flee Israeli bombardment in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on November 6, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
“We are closing in on them,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, Israeli military spokesman. “We have completed our siege, separating Hamas strongholds in the north from the south.”
Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain in the dark path of land invasion. Israel says evacuation corridors in the southern part of the narrow region are still available for refugees. However, the attack on the safe zone was supposed to kill dozens of people Sunday.
Seventy percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes amid the war and are struggling with dwindling supplies of food, medicine, fuel and water amid the desperate situation, according to the United Nations. Mobile phone and internet service was gradually restored on Monday after being disrupted in the overnight blitz.
A Palestinian man reacts as others examine the rubble of a building in Khan Yunis.AFP via Getty Images
Airstrikes in recent days have hit UN facilities used by thousands as shelters and hospitals overwhelmed by the wounded and facing shortages of electricity and supplies.
Monday’s attack on Shifa Hospital in Gaza City killed scores of people seeking shelter and destroyed the solar panels that largely power the medical center, which uses only one generator.
The building shook throughout the night, according to surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, who said, “We started getting bodies and wounded. It was horrible.”
Israeli artillery units fire from the Israeli side of the border towards the Gaza Strip.Getty Images
An unknown number of people were buried in the rubble following the attack that hit the Shati refugee camp on the Mediterranean coast, according to recent evacuees.
Eighteen leaders of UN aid agencies and organizations issued a joint statement Sunday demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and declaring “enough” of violence in the region. Only 450 aid trucks have been allowed to enter Gaza through Egypt since Oct. 21.
“The entire population is surrounded and attacked, denied access to the necessities of life, bombed in their homes, shelters, hospitals and places of worship. This is unacceptable,” the joint statement said, adding that dozens of aid workers had also been killed.
People flee after an Israeli attack on a refugee camp in central Gaza.Xinhua/Shutterstock
President Joe Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to consider halting his offensive to allow more humanitarian supplies and as a bargain for the release of several hundred Hamas hostages. That proposal, and calls for a broader ceasefire from neighboring Arab countries, have been rejected by Israel, according to the White House.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the region Monday, saying his diplomatic efforts to negotiate the release of prisoners captured in the raid and establish post-Hamas governance of Gaza remained “a work in progress.”
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Hezbollah group, another Palestinian faction tied to Hamas and backed by Iran, traded with Israel after launching attacks from the north on the cities of Nahariya and Haifa in retaliation for the IDF incursion.
Israeli troops and tanks are taking up positions inside the Gaza Strip, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). via REUTERS
In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, Israeli forces shot and killed four Palestinian men in a vehicle, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Two of them were high-ranking militants, the IDF said.
In East Jerusalem, a Palestinian man stabbed two Israeli border guards before being shot dead, as tensions rose.
With Postal wire
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
