Ground fighting took place on Saturday October 28 in the Gaza Strip, the target of unprecedented Israeli strikes, three weeks after the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian armed group Hamas. The enclave is cut off from the world due to the shutdown of telecommunications and the Internet.
The Israeli army said on Friday evening that it had increased its strikes in Gaza in a “very significant manner” before announcing that its ground forces would “expand” their operations there. Israel accuses Hamas of having set up its headquarters in the basement of a hospital and of using the population as a “human shield”, accusations denied by the Palestinian Islamist movement.
After these announcements, Hamas said it was “ready” to face a ground offensive and fired rockets at the Jewish state. In the evening, the armed Islamist movement reported “violent fighting” with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, spoke of ground fighting in two sectors of the Palestinian enclave: “We face Israeli ground incursions in Beit Hanoun [north] and Al-Bourej [center ]. »
A spokesperson for the Israeli army confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP), during the night from Friday to Saturday, that Israeli forces were operating “inside the Gaza Strip as they did” while leading a raid the night before. On Friday evening, AFP images showed explosions and smoke rising into the sky above the Palestinian enclave.
Blackout in Gaza
At the same time, communications and the Internet have been cut in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas government, which has had authority over the territory since 2007. The Palestinian Red Crescent and several United Nations (UN) agencies and NGOs said they had lost contact with their teams in Gaza due to the blackout.
While the UN says it fears an “avalanche of human suffering” in the besieged Palestinian enclave, the General Assembly of the international organization adopted on Friday, by a very large majority, a resolution calling for “an immediate humanitarian truce”. This non-binding text was welcomed by Hamas but strongly rejected by Israel, with the Hebrew state’s ambassador to the UN denouncing it as “infamy”.
The Gaza Strip, subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade for more than sixteen years, has been placed under “total siege” since October 9 by Israel, which has cut off water, electricity and transport. food supply.
“Basic services are collapsing, supplies of medicine, food and water are running out, sewers are starting to overflow in the streets of Gaza,” the head of the Agency for Human Resources described on Friday. United Nations for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on the population of the north of the territory, where the bombardments are most intense, to evacuate to the south. But strikes also continue to affect the southern part of Gaza, near the closed Egyptian border.
Protests in the West Bank
The Hamas health ministry said Friday that 7,326 people, mostly civilians including more than 3,000 children, have been killed in Gaza in Israeli bombardments since the Islamist group’s attack on the state. Hebrew on October 7. More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel in this attack, mainly civilians.
According to the Israeli army, 229 hostages, Israeli, binational or foreign, were also taken to Gaza by Hamas on October 7. Four women have since been released. The Islamist movement estimated Thursday that “nearly fifty” hostages had been killed in Israeli bombings.
Tension is also very high in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, where more than a hundred Palestinians have been killed in violence since October 7. Demonstrations took place on Friday into the evening in the streets of Jenin, Ramallah and Nablus, sparking clashes with Israeli soldiers.
