Fierce clashes in Gaza as Israeli forces expand ground offensive

GAZA – Fierce air and artillery strikes rang out in Gaza early on Monday as Israeli troops backed by tanks pressed into the Palestinian enclave with a ground assault.

Israel’s military said it had struck more than 600 militant targets over the past few days as it continued to expand ground operations in the Gaza Strip.

The recent escalation in violence has entered its fourth week and Palestinian civilians in the enclave are in dire need of fuel, food and clean water.

“IDF (Israel Defence Forces) troops killed dozens of terrorists who barricaded themselves in buildings and tunnels, and attempted to attack the troops,” the military said in a statement.

Israel began a major push into Gaza last Friday and reiterated calls for civilians to move from the north of the tiny coastal enclave to the south. The country is trying to root out Hamas militants who it says are hiding in a labyrinth of tunnels under Gaza City, which is in the northern part of the enclave.

In what appeared to be an effort to cut off the city, Israeli forces carried out dozens of air strikes on its eastern side, residents said, with some reporting the roar of tanks rolling in amid heavy exchanges of fire.

To the west, where Israel on Sunday had tanks on the Mediterranean coast, the north-south coast road was hit several times, residents said.

Internet and phone connections remained largely cut off in the north, making communication difficult.

Many Palestinians have stayed in Gaza City, afraid to lose their homes and concerned by news of Israeli air strikes farther south.

Medical officials in Al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals said air strikes had hit near their buildings.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said 117,000 civilians are sheltering alongside thousands of patients and doctors in hospitals in the north.

Israel has accused Hamas of locating command centres and other military infrastructure in Gaza hospitals, which the group denies.

Air strikes could also be heard in the southern town of Rafah, near Gaza’s border crossing with Egypt, the only one not blocked by Israel, as well as east of Khan Younis, where Palestinian media said Hamas clashed with Israeli troops.

Phone and Internet cuts

which blacked out Gaza on Friday had eased. Ocha said on Monday that services were largely restored, although telecommunications providers have said services in some areas in the north were still down.

Clashes in West Bank

Israel has said 1,400 people were killed when Hamas-led militants

attacked the south of the country on Oct 7

and took more than 200 hostages.

Hamas has released four hostages so far and said 50 have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Gaza.

Medical authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, which has a population of 2.3 million people, said on Monday that more than 8,300 people have been killed.

Ocha said rescuers were struggling to reach people.

“As at Oct 29, about 1,800 people, including at least 940 children, have been reported missing and may be trapped or dead under the rubble, awaiting rescue or recovery,” it said.

It also said that armed groups continued firing rockets at Israel indiscriminately, with no fatalities reported.

Israel’s Defence Ministry issued video footage of what it said were manoeuvres inside Gaza, showing soldiers stationed inside buildings, tanks on a main road, and air strikes on what it said were buildings occupied by Hamas.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the exact timing or location of the video and Israel’s military said it would not reveal where it was filmed.

“We are moving from the ground, spotting the terrorists and attacking from the air. There is also direct engagement between ground forces and terrorists.

“The fighting is taking place inside the Gaza Strip,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

Militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad said their members were also fighting Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied West Bank city of Jenin, where scores of Palestinians have been killed and hundreds arrested since Oct 7.

Israel said on Monday it had arrested 700 Hamas militants in the West Bank, where it says its forces often come under fire while trying to detain the militants.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said four people were killed during a raid in Jenin early on Monday.

Israel said several fighters were killed in an air strike there.

Airport unrest in Russia

The conflict has spurred large demonstrations worldwide in support of the Palestinians. On Sunday, several thousand

people rallied in Beirut, Lebanon, to show solidarity with Gaza

.

The Russian authorities said police had taken over an airport in the predominantly Muslim Dagestan region and arrested 60 people after hundreds of

anti-Israel protesters stormed the facility on Sunday

when a plane from Israel arrived.

Twenty people were wounded at the airport before security forces contained the unrest, the local authorities said. The passengers on the plane were safe, security forces told Reuters.

Israel’s widening ground attacks on Gaza have spurred international calls for a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid in.

Qatar-mediated negotiations between Israel and Hamas

continued on Sunday, a source briefed on the talks told Reuters, and included discussions about the possible release of hostages.

Hamas wants a five-day humanitarian pause in Israel’s operations to allow aid and fuel into the besieged Gaza Strip in return for the release of all civilian hostages held by the militants, said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

More than half of the hostages held by Hamas have foreign passports from 25 countries, including 54 Thai nationals, according to the Israeli government.

Ocha said 33 trucks carrying water, food and medical supplies had entered Gaza on Sunday, the biggest delivery so far.

But it said much bigger deliveries were required to meet urgent needs and prevent civil unrest. People stormed aid stores on Sunday in search of food.

On Monday, the United Nations Security Council is due to be briefed on the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The 15-member body has unsuccessfully voted four times in the past two weeks on draft resolutions that aimed to take action on the war.

But the 193-member

UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Friday

to call for an immediate humanitarian truce.

US President Joe Biden pressed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a call on Sunday to protect civilians in Gaza and “immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian aid”, the White House said.

Israel has

vowed to annihilate Hamas,

a task it described as necessitating protracted ground assaults in, around and under Gaza City, where the militants have an extensive subterranean bunker network.

There are fears too that the war will spill over into the region, including in Lebanon, where the Israeli army and Iranian-backed Hezbollah group have been exchanging fire.

Mr Biden has warned Iran not to stir up the conflict. Iran on Monday said Washington should stop blaming it for the violence.

On Monday, Syrian state TV said Israeli air strikes targeted two army posts in Daraa, leading to “some material losses”. REUTERS