DEIR BALAH (Gaza Strip) – Internet and phone services in the Gaza Strip collapsed under intense bombardment on Friday night, isolating the enclave’s 2.3 million residents from the outside world and from each other, as the Israeli military said it was “expanding.” Its ground operations in the besieged area.
The army’s announcement indicates that it is approaching a comprehensive invasion of Gaza, as it pledged to crush the ruling Hamas movement after its invasion. Bloody invasion In southern Israel three weeks ago
Repeated explosions caused by airstrikes lit up the skies of Gaza City after nightfall on Friday, when power was cut off to internet, cellphone and landline services. The Red Crescent said that it had lost contact with the operating room and its medical teams. She said she feared people would no longer be able to call ambulance services. Other aid groups said they were unable to reach their staff on the ground.
The Palestinian Telecommunications Company “Paltel” announced a “complete interruption of all communications and Internet services” due to the bombing.
Israeli military spokesman Admiral Daniel Hagari said that ground forces are “expanding their activity” in Gaza and that they are “acting with great force… to achieve the goals of the war.”
Israel mobilized hundreds of thousands of soldiers along the border with Gaza before an expected ground attack against the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Yoav Galant told a small group of foreign reporters that Israel expects a long and difficult ground offensive into Gaza soon. He added that it “will take a long time” to dismantle Hamas’ vast network of tunnels, adding that he expects a long phase of less intense fighting while Israel destroys “pockets of resistance.”
His comments indicated a new, potentially exhausting, open-ended phase of the war after three weeks of continuous bombing. Israel said it It aims to crush Hamas’s rule in Gaza And its ability to threaten Israel. But how Hamas’s defeat will be measured, and the end of the invasion remains unclear. Israel says it has no intention of ruling the small region of 2.3 million Palestinians, but it does intend to rule who it expects to rule, even as Gallant points to the possibility of a long-term insurgency.
In a sign of escalating tensions in the region, American warplanes launched He struck targets in eastern Syria Which the Pentagon said was linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard after a series of attacks on American forces, and two mysterious objects struck towns in the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula.
The number of Palestinian deaths in Gaza has risen to more than 7,300, according to officials there. The blockade on Gaza means dwindling supplies of food, fuel, water and medicine, and the United Nations has warned that its aid operation to help hundreds of thousands of people is “collapsing” amid almost exhausted fuel.
Ministry of Health in Gaza, Thursday released a detailed list Names and identification numbers of those killed, including more than 3,000 minors and more than 1,500 women.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel during the Hamas attack on October 7, according to the Israeli government, and at least 229 hostages were taken to Gaza. Palestinian militants fired thousands of rockets into Israel, including one that hit a residential building in Tel Aviv on Friday, wounding four people.
The total number of deaths far exceeds the total toll of the previous four wars between Israel and Hamas. It is estimated at about 4000. The ground invasion is expected to cause greater casualties on both sides, with Israeli and Hamas forces fighting each other in densely populated residential areas.
Gaza hospitals are searching for fuel To operate emergency generators that power incubators and other life-saving equipment after Israel cut off all fuel supplies at the start of the war, forcing its only power plant to shut down.
Gallant said Israel believes Hamas will confiscate any fuel that enters. He said that Hamas uses electric generators to pump air into its tunnels, which are hundreds of kilometers long and originate from civilian areas. He showed reporters aerial footage of what he said was a tunnel built next to a hospital.
“For air, they need oil. For oil, they need us,” he said.
Late Friday, the army released photos showing what it claimed were Hamas facilities in and around Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa Hospital. Israel has made such claims before, but has refused to reveal how it obtained the images.
Little is known about Hamas’s tunnels and other infrastructure, and the Army’s and Gallant’s claims cannot be verified.
Speaking at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Hamas’s media chief, Salama Moussa, described Israel’s claims as “lies” and said they were “a prelude to striking this facility.”
“I’m ringing the alarm bell,” Musa said. “There is imminent danger looming over the medical facility” and those inside it. The United Nations says the hospital has been overwhelmed with thousands of sick and wounded, and about 40,000 displaced Gazans have crowded in and around the hospital grounds, seeking shelter.
About 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes, with nearly half of them crowding into United Nations shelters. Hundreds of thousands remain in northern GazaAlthough Israel ordered them to evacuate to the south and said those who remained could be considered “accomplices” with Hamas.
Over the past week, Israel has allowed more than 80 trucks loaded with aid to enter from Egypt through the Rafah crossing – including 10 trucks loaded with food, medicine and other supplies on Friday morning. The convoys meet only a small portion of Gaza’s needs amid the worsening humanitarian collapse.
The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, which provides basic services to hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza, said it had to ration fuel for life-saving machinery in hospitals, bakeries and desalination plants, and only had enough to last a few more days. UN staff say they will ensure that fuel shipments do not reach Hamas.
“The blockade means that food, water and fuel – basic commodities – are being used to collectively punish more than two million people, including a majority of children and women,” Philippe Lazzarini, Director-General of UNRWA, told reporters. He said UN staff in Gaza reported that “the last remaining public services are collapsing, our aid operations are collapsing, and for the first time ever, they are reporting that people are now going hungry.”
Earlier Friday, the army said that ground forces supported by fighter jets and drones raided inside Gaza, bombing dozens of armed targets during the past 24 hours. She added that aircraft and artillery bombed targets in the Shujaiya neighborhood on the outskirts of Gaza City, which was the scene of the attack. Urban battle In the 2014 Gaza war.
The army said that the soldiers left the area without any casualties. It announced a previous raid on northern Gaza on Thursday.
It showed the damage caused to Gaza as a result of the bombing that has continued for about three weeks In satellite images From several sites it was captured before the war and again in recent days. Entire rows of apartment buildings disappear in the images, reduced to smears of dust and rubble.
The Israeli army says it only targets militants and accuses Hamas of operating among civilians in an attempt to protect its fighters.
Israel captured Gaza in the 1967 Middle East War, and occupied the Strip until a unilateral withdrawal in 2005. It has maintained a tight blockade of the area since Hamas took power in the 2006 parliamentary elections, then seized full control the following year from the recognized Palestinian enclave. Doing it internationally. authority.
The conflict threatens to spark a wider war across the region.
The United States sent two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region in part to deter Iran and its allies from entering the war. The Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group repeatedly exchanged fire with Israel along the border.
The Egyptian army said that a drone crashed into a building in the Red Sea city of Taba, on the border with Israel, slightly wounding six people. The state-run Cairo News Channel said a “foreign object” also fell near a power station in the nearby town of Nuweiba. Video footage showed debris and smoke rising from the side of a nearby mountain.
Last week, a US Navy destroyer was shot down in the northern Red Sea Three cruise missiles and several drones Launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels towards Israel in northern Yemen.
___
Federman reported from Tel Aviv and Marwa from Beirut. Najib Gobin in Rafah, Gaza Strip, Jack Jeffrey in Cairo, Isabel Debre in Jerusalem, and Brian Melley in London contributed to this report.
“Internet practitioner. Social media maven. Certified zombieaholic. Lifelong communicator.”