Israel said that its forces were pushing deep into Gaza City, where tanks were positioned on the outskirts for a potential storming of the territory’s urban heartland. Major General Yaron Finkelman, commanding officer of the Southern Command of the Israeli Defence Forces, said, “For the first time in decades, IDF is fighting in the heart of Gaza City. At the heart of terrorism.”
“Every day and every hour the forces are killing militants, exposing tunnels and destroying weapons and continuing onward to enemy centres,” he said. Israel previously said that it had surrounded Gaza City and would soon attack it to annihilate Hamas who assaulted Israel one month ago. A spokesperson for the military, Richard Hecht, suggested that the encircling troops could be making raids inside.
“I’m not going to talk about how we are operationally acting from within our encirclement around Gaza City. You are in the right direction, that’s all I can say,” he said.
This comes as over 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, have been killed since the war began while Hamas abducted more than 200. Israel has bombarded Gaza, killing more than 10,000 people, around 40 percent of them children.
“It has been one full month of carnage, of incessant suffering, bloodshed, destruction, outrage and despair,” UN Human Rights Commissioner Volcker Turk said in a statement.
Israel gave residents a window from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. to leave Gaza City saying, “For your safety, take this next opportunity to move south beyond Wadi Gaza,” referring to the wetlands. Gaza’s interior ministry said that 900,000 Palestinians are still sheltering in northern Gaza including Gaza City.
Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Tel Aviv would seek to have security responsibility for Gaza “for an indefinite period”.
“We’ve seen what happens when we don’t have that security responsibility,” he said. But White House spokesman John Kirby said US president Joe Biden opposed Israeli reoccupation as “it’s not good for Israel, it’s not good for the Israeli people. Whatever it is, it can’t be what it was on Oct. 6. It can’t be Hamas.”
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