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Palestinian Territories: Against a backdrop of mounting calls for a stop to the carnage and Red Cross warnings of “intolerable” suffering, Israel stepped up its bombardment on Gaza on Sunday and warned that its fight against Hamas will be “long and difficult.”
Israel said that the battle had entered a “second stage.” While ground forces were still active within the territory controlled by Hamas more than twenty-four hours after entering it on Friday, the UN warned that many more civilians could remain dead in Gaza.
On October 7, after Hamas terrorists broke through the Gaza border, Israel launched a huge bombing assault, claiming the lives of 1,400 people, most of them civilians, and taking 230 hostages.
The health ministry in Gaza, which is under the leadership of Hamas, announced on Saturday that over 8,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel’s ceaseless attacks on the enclave, half of them being youngsters.
In Gaza, however, communications progressively returned on Sunday following a blackout that lasted more than 24 hours. Over half of the 2.4 million people living in the congested region have been forced to flee as Israel enforced an almost complete siege, destroying thousands of buildings.
The International Committee of the Red Cross president, Mirjana Spoljaric, expressed dismay on Saturday at the “intolerable level of human suffering” and urged all parties to de-escalate the situation.
“The world cannot stand by this catastrophic failure.”
But Israel claims it is stepping up its ground operations while still bombarding Gaza from the air, despite the growing cries for an end to the violence.
According to Hamas officials, two refugee camps in northern Gaza were targeted overnight, resulting in the deaths of a “large number” of individuals.
Residents of Ashdod and Ashkelon, two cities in the south, were earlier alerted about impending rocket and missile assaults by Israel’s Home Front Command.
The fierce attacks on Hamas, which has controlled Gaza since 2007, gave Israeli ground forces the green light to intensify their operations ahead of the anticipated invasion.
“Combined combat forces comprising armor, combat engineers, and infantry have been operating on the ground in the northern Gaza Strip since early Friday evening,” the Israeli army declared late on Saturday.
Netanyahu told reporters, “This is the second stage of the war, whose goals are clear: bringing the hostages back home and destroying the military and leadership capabilities of Hamas.”
To “eradicate” Hamas “for the sake of our existence,” he declared.
“We are ready for the long and difficult war that will ensue in the Gaza Strip.”
Speaking of the extensive network of tunnels Hamas has dug beneath Gaza, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant previously declared that Israel was targeting “above the ground and below the ground” in the latest phase of the conflict.
While this was going on, Israeli fighter jets dropped leaflets over Gaza City alerting locals of the dangers of staying in shelters in the northern part of the city and advising them to “evacuate immediately” to the south.
Similar warnings were issued by the army early in the campaign, but many of the people who fled south did not manage to find safety from Israeli bombing, thus they returned home.
“Thousands more civilians” could perish, according to UN human rights official Volker Turk, who has spoken of “the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza.”
Additionally, experts warned of potential consequences endangering the Middle East as Israel moves tanks and troops deeper into Gaza, even as Western concerns about Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, opening a new front on the Lebanese border intensify.
As Israel-Lebanon border clashes continue, a UN peacekeeper was hurt on Saturday by shelling in south Lebanon, the mission’s spokesman said, hours after reporting a strike at its headquarters.
If Israel released every Palestinian prisoner it was holding, the armed wing of Hamas declared it would be willing to release the hostages it had kidnapped.
The spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obeida, stated, “The price to pay for the large number of enemy hostages in our hands is to empty the (Israeli) prisons of all Palestinian prisoners.”
Yahya Sinwar, the chairman of Hamas in Gaza, stated that the organization was prepared to have an “immediate” exchange.
The Brigades reported last week that Israeli attacks had killed “nearly 50” of the hostages.
Netanyahu visited representatives of the family of hostages on Saturday, feeling more and more enraged at what is happening to the detainees as Israel intensifies its campaign against Hamas.
Ifat Kalderon expressed her support for the notion of freeing prisoners in exchange for the hostages. Ofer Kalderon, Ifat’s cousin, is reportedly detained in Gaza together with members of his family.
“Take them; they are not needed here.” She uttered, “I want my family and all of the hostages to return home.
Netanyahu promised prisoner families that Israel would “exhaust every option to bring them home,” but he made no promises regarding any exchange agreement.
Late on Friday, the Palestinian Red Crescent issued a warning that emergency calls were not being answered when all phone networks and communications were shut off in Gaza.
Human Rights Watch issued a warning, stating that the blackout might provide a “cover for mass atrocities.”
However, on Sunday morning, Jawwal, a Palestinian telecom company, and worldwide network watchdog Netblocks reported that communication was progressively returning to Gaza and that connectivity was being restored overall.
Early on Sunday, an AFP employee in Gaza City verified that he could access the phone network and the Internet and that he had been able to make phone calls to individuals in the southern part of Gaza.
Billionaire Elon Musk said that “internationally recognized aid organizations in Gaza” could access the Internet through his Starlink satellite service during the interruption.
A network of satellites in low Earth orbit called Starlink can deliver Internet service to isolated places or places where regular communications infrastructure has been disrupted.
The UN General Assembly has requested an “immediate humanitarian truce,” while EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell has asked for a “pause of hostilities” to allow aid into Gaza.
Speaking to tens of thousands of supporters of the Palestinian cause in Istanbul on Saturday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that “the West is the main culprit behind the massacre unfolding in Gaza.”
Israel decided to remove all of its diplomats from Turkiye as a result of his remarks.
The UN estimates that over 1.4 million people have been forced to flee Gaza as a result of Israel’s military operation, and fuel supplies have been entirely cut off. The congested region has virtually no access to power, food, or water.
Although the UN claims that 500 trucks on average entered Gaza each day before the fighting, just 84 trucks have entered since the first convoy of aid was permitted to enter on October 21.
The UN reports that after the October 7 attacks, there has been a substantial increase in violence in the occupied West Bank, with 109 Palestinians—including 33 children—killed by Israeli forces or settlers.
Source- REUTERS
