Israel said yesterday its war on Hamas had “entered a new phase” with a massive bombardment of Gaza as the fighter group demanded the release of all Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages it seized three weeks ago.
The UN warned thousands more civilians could die as Israel said its forces were still operating inside Gaza more than 24 hours after entering the Hamas-run territory. Israel unleashed its bombing campaign after Hamas fighters stormed across the Gaza border on October 7.
7,703 DEATHS IN GAZA
The Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza said Israeli strikes had since killed 7,703 people, mainly civilians, with more than 3,500 of them children.
The conflict is the fifth and deadliest in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew troops and settlers from the Palestinian territory in 2005.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned of “the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza”, saying “thousands more civilians” could die.
“Since early Friday evening, combined combat forces of armour, combat engineers and infantry have been operating on the ground in the northern Gaza Strip,” the army said late yesterday.
Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the Gaza border raising expectations of a full-blown invasion, with its soldiers making limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday.
“We’ve entered a new phase in the war,” Israeli minister Yoav Gallant said yesterday.
“Last night, the ground in Gaza shook. We attacked above the ground and below the ground,” he said.
Israeli fighter jets dropped leaflets over Gaza City yesterday warning residents that the area was now a “battlefield”.
The army already delivered similar warnings earlier in its campaign, but many who fled south ended up returning home after failing to find refuge from Israeli bombing.
APPEAL TO RELEASE
PALESTINIAN PRISONERS
Hamas’s armed wing said it was ready to release the hostages it abducted if Israel freed all the Palestinian prisoners it was holding.
“The price to pay for the large number of enemy hostages in our hands is to empty the (Israeli) prisons of all Palestinian prisoners,” Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said. “If the enemy wants to close this file of detainees in one go, we are ready for it. If it wants to do it step-by-step, we are ready for that too,” he added.
Some 229 hostages are being held in the Gaza Strip, many of them foreigners or dual nationals, the Israeli army says.
Earlier this week, the Brigades said “almost 50” of the hostages had been killed in Israeli air strikes. Facing increasing anger over the fate of the captives as Israel steps up its war on Hamas, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to meet representatives of hostage relatives who demanded to know how the government would handle the crisis.
COMMUNICATIONS BLACKOUT
Overnight, hundreds of buildings and houses were completely destroyed and thousands damaged, Gaza officials said.
Amid the rubble in Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, Alaa Mahdi likened the destruction to that of an “earthquake”. “If it were a natural earthquake, it would have been much easier than what happened last night,” he said.
Israeli fighter jets hit 150 tunnels, underground combat spaces and additional underground infrastructure and “several fighters were killed”, the army said.
On Friday evening, Hamas said all Internet connections and communications across Gaza had been cut.
AFP journalists in Gaza confirmed they were only able to communicate in limited areas where they could connect to Israeli networks across the border.
AMBULANCE SERVICES HIT
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the outage had disrupted ambulance services.
The UN humanitarian co-ordinator for the Palestinian territories, Lynne Hastings, warned that “hospitals & humanitarian operations can’t continue without communications”.
12 HOSPITALS SHUT DOWN
Between the bombardments and the fuel shortages, 12 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals have been forced to close and the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said it has had to “significantly reduce its operations”.
BORRELL’S CALL TO
PAUSE HOSTILITIES
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell demanded a “pause of hostilities” to allow aid into Gaza, after the UN General Assembly called for an “immediate humanitarian truce”.
The non-binding resolution on Friday received overwhelming support, but Israel and the US criticised it.
ERDOGAN SLAMS
ISRAELI POLICY
Addressing a rally of several hundred thousand Palestinian supporters in Istanbul yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said “the main culprit behind the massacre unfolding in Gaza is the West.”
He accused Israel of behaving like a “war criminal” and trying to “eradicate” Palestinians, describing its Gaza bombardment as “a vicious massacre”.
His comments prompted Israel to announce it was recalling all of its diplomats from Turkiye.
Israel’s bombing campaign has displaced more than 1.4mn people inside Gaza, according to the UN, while supplies of food, water and power to the crowded territory have been almost completely cut off.
A first convoy of aid was allowed on October 21, but only 84 trucks have crossed in total, according to the UN, which says a daily average of 500 trucks had entered Gaza before the conflict.
Violence has also risen sharply in the occupied West Bank since the October 7 attacks, with more than 100 Palestinians killed,
according to the UN.