Internet, telephone lines cut through Gaza while Israeli soil operations should degenerate
Israeli tanks were seen in two areas of Gaza City which are gateways to the city center, residents said on Thursday, while the Internet lines and telephone lines were cut through the Gaza Strip, a sign that ground operations were likely to degenerate imminently.
The Israeli forces control the eastern suburbs of the city of Gaza and in recent days have struck the regions of Cheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and Western areas where most of the population is reflected.
“The disconnection of Internet and telephone services is a bad omen. It has always been a bad signal, something very brutal will happen,” said Ismail, which has given only one name. He used an E-SIM to connect his phone, a dangerous method because it requires looking for higher land to receive a signal.
At least 85 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes or shots through the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, most of them in Gaza City, according to the Ministry of Health of the Territory.
The Israeli army said four of its staff had been killed during the fight in southern Gaza.
In separate developments, Israel attacked military targets from Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, while two Israelis were killed in Allenby crossing the West Bank occupied by Israelis and Jordan, in what the Israeli army called a “terrorist attack”.
Israeli army spokesman Nadav Shoshani said the troops operated on the outskirts of the city for several weeks, but since the night of Monday to Tuesday, a large number of troops had started to go to the city center.
He said that a combination of infantry, tanks and artillery advanced, supported by the Air Force, and that it was a progressive process that would increase over time.
In total, 48 hostages captured during the attack led by Hamas against southern Israel on October 7, 2023, remain in Gaza and Israeli officials believe that about 20 are still alive.
The hostage families imploring Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to arrest the Gaza offensive and rather negotiate a cease-fire with Hamas to release their loved ones, but Netanyahu says that military victory will bring them home.
The Hamas armed wing said Thursday that hostages had been distributed in the Gaza City districts.
“The start of this criminal operation and its expansion means that you will not receive any captive, living or dead,” he said in a statement.
The main roads of the targeted network
The Palestinian telecommunications company said in a statement that its services had been cut “due to the current attack and the targeting of the main routes of the network”.
In his last statement to the media, he said that the troops widen their operations to Gaza City, dismantling what she called “terrorist infrastructure” and “eliminated terrorists” and continued to operate to Khan Younis and Rafah in the South.
Israel says he wants to break the Palestinian militant group Hamas in his bastions and release the last hostages that are still held in Gaza, but his last major offensive after two years of devastating war attracted international condemnation.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the city of Gaza since Israel announced on August 10 that it intended to take control, but greater number remain in place, either in battered houses among the ruins, or in tapes of makeshift tents.
Bassam Al-Qanou, a displaced man who is refanting with around thirty family members in an improvised tents camp on the beach, said they had no way to go out, and nowhere to go.
“We are afraid, but what can we do?” He said, adding that children could not sleep because of fear and incessant boom of the sea, air and soil missile strikes.
Trump, Starmer asked questions about Gaza
US President Donald Trump said he disagreed with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer to recognize a Palestinian state, speaking after a bilateral meeting on Thursday during his state visit.
Asked at a press conference on the recognition of a Palestinian state, Trump said: “I have disagreement with the Prime Minister on this score, one of our rare disagreements, in fact.”
Starmer said he and Trump agreed on the ultimate objective of peace in the region, adding that the pair agreed on “the need for peace and a roadmap, because the situation in Gaza is intolerable”.
The United Kingdom is one of several Western countries which indicated that they were preparing to recognize the Palestinian state at the United Nations meeting in New York next week. He comes in the heels of a United Nations Commission of Inquiry in Geneva concluding earlier this week that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza.
Thousands of Palestinians broadcast from Gaza City while Israel launched its offensive on the ground on Tuesday, but hundreds of thousands of people remain in the city which is already in ruins of almost two years of war. Several residents, some of whom had already fled south, but have returned since, explain the independent videographer of CBC News, Mohamed El Saife why they stay.
The army has dropped leaflets urging residents to flee to a “humanitarian zone” designated in the south of the territory, but the conditions are disastrous, with food, drugs and insufficient space and an inadequate shelter.
Four other Palestinians, including a child, died of malnutrition and famine in the last 24 hours, said the Ministry of Health, increasing the deaths of such causes to at least 435 people, including 147 children, since the start of the war.
Israel says that the extent of hunger in Gaza has been exaggerated and blamed Hamas for the continuation of the war, saying that it could end it now if he went, released the hostages, disarmed and dissolved. Hamas says it will not disarm until a Palestinian state is established.
Shoshani, spokesperson for the Israeli army, said that the field situation was not easy, but that Israel took action to limit civilian victims and allow humanitarian assistance. He accused Hamas of having dissuaded people to leave the combat zone for the humanitarian area because the group used civilians as human shields.
Ismail Al-Thawabta, director of the government’s media office managed by Hamas, said Shoshani’s allegations were misleading because the assertion of Israel that there were safe areas in the South was false.
The media office declared earlier than 44% of 3,542 people killed by Israel across the territory since August 11, when it launched its new military offensive, had perished in central and southern areas.
“This confirms that the targeting was complete and deliberate against the civilian population and against the designated shelters,” said Al-Thawabta.
Tank seen in the neighborhoods
Along the coastal road, an uninterrupted column of all types of vehicles, carts and cars beaten with vans designed to transport goods, moved south, heavily loaded with mattresses, gas bottles and whole families perceive on their personal effects.
“We are heading to sleep in the streets towards the beach, like barefoot, we don’t know where to go,” said Yasser Saleh, speaking while he was on the edge of a ripping trailer pulled by a car.
In Sheikh Radwan, which is north of the city center and has been the subject of heavy bombing in recent days, the residents have said that they had seen tanks in the heart of their neighborhood.
They also said the Israeli forces had exploded four driver -free vehicles filled with explosives and that the explosions had destroyed many houses.
On the same day, an offensive on the ground was launched in Gaza City, a report by the United Nations Commission concluded that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, a conclusion clearly refused by Israeli officials.
Similar explosions had shaken such al-Hawa, which is located southeast of the city center, and the residents also said they saw tanks in the streets.
The total number of Palestinian deaths of the two -year war between Israel and Hamas exceeded 65,000 on Wednesday, according to the Gaza health authorities. Palestinian officials and rescuers say that the real figure is probably higher because many remains are trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The war was launched by the attacks led by Hamas against southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages, according to Israeli accounts.
A large part of the city of Gaza was owned at the start of the war, but around 1 million Palestinians returned to houses among the ruins due to the horrible conditions of the travel areas.
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