The Israeli military isolated northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged enclave on Monday and continued to bombard the territory with airstrikes as ground forces prepared to invade densely populated Gaza City.
The Israel Defense Forces said airstrikes had destroyed 450 Hamas targets and that Israeli soldiers had taken control of a military compound in an escalation of their war against the terrorist group nearly a month after the monstrous Hamas attack that killed more than 1,400 people.
Gaza health officials said more than 10,000 Palestinians had been killed in the offensive, without distinguishing between civilians and militants.
Hamas claimed that 4,100 of the victims were children and 2,600 of them were women. However, the United States has accused the group of exaggerating its death toll.
Another 2,300 people were said to be missing and believed to be buried under rubble.
Israel said several Hamas commanders had been killed in recent bombings and blamed its adversary for civilian deaths because the group operates in residential areas.
An expected new phase of urban combat would dramatically increase casualties in the paralyzed disputed territory. The region had not seen so much bloodshed since the Arab-Israeli war ended in 1949 following the creation of the Jewish state.
Palestinian children run as they flee Israeli shelling in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on November 6, 2023. AFP via Getty Images
“We are closing in on them,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman. “We have completed our encirclement, separating Hamas strongholds in the north from the south.”
Hundreds of thousands of civilians remained on the dark path of the ground invasion. Israel said an evacuation corridor in the southern part of the narrow territory was still available for refugees. However, attacks on the supposed safe zone killed dozens of people on Sunday.
Seventy percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled their homes amid the war and are grappling with depleted supplies of food, medicine, fuel and water amid a desperate situation, according to the United Nations. Cellphone and Internet service was gradually restored Monday after dropping during overnight bombings.
A Palestinian reacts as others sift through the rubble of a building in Khan Yunis.AFP via Getty Images
Airstrikes in recent days have hit UN facilities used by thousands of people as shelters and hospitals, inundated with injured victims and facing shortages of electricity and supplies.
A Monday attack on Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital killed an unknown number of people seeking shelter and destroyed solar panels that largely supplied power to the medical center, which had been left without a single generator.
The buildings shook throughout the night, according to surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta, who said: “We began to collect the bodies and the wounded. It was horrible”.
An Israeli artillery unit fires from the Israeli side of the border towards the Gaza Strip.Getty Images
According to recent evacuees, an unknown number of people were buried under rubble after attacks hit the Shati refugee camp on the Mediterranean coast.
Eighteen leaders of UN agencies and aid organizations issued a joint statement on Sunday demanding an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and declaring that “enough is enough” with the violence in the region. As of October 21, only 450 aid trucks had been allowed to enter Gaza via Egypt.
“An entire population is besieged and attacked, denied access to the essentials for survival and 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 escape after the Israeli attack on a refugee camp in central Gaza.Xinhua/Shutterstock
President Joe Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to consider pausing his attack to allow for more humanitarian supplies and as a bargaining chip for the release of some of the hundreds of Hamas hostages. According to the White House, the proposal and the call for a broader ceasefire by neighboring Arab nations were rejected by Israel.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken left the region on Monday, saying his diplomatic efforts to negotiate the release of prisoners captured in the raid and establish the government of a post-Hamas Gaza remained “a work in progress.”
Meanwhile, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, another Palestinian faction linked to Hamas and backed by Iran, exchanged fire with Israel after launching an attack from the north on the cities of Nahariya and Haifa in retaliation for the IDF invasion.
Israeli soldiers and tanks take 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 dead four Palestinian men in a vehicle, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Two of them were high-ranking militants, the army said.
In East Jerusalem, a Palestinian had stabbed two Israeli border guards before being shot dead, as tensions rose.
With postal cables
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Source: vtt.edu.vn