Israel’s army on Monday (Nov 4) sent dozens of tanks into southern Gaza as part of expanded, “aggressive” action against Hamas and its allies in the besieged territory, despite global concern over mounting civilian deaths.
Weeks after Israel deployed ground forces in the north of the Gaza Strip, the army has been air-dropping leaflets in parts of the south, telling Palestinians to flee to other areas.
Israel has vowed to crush Hamas in retaliation for the militant group’s unprecedented Oct 7 attacks that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and saw around 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli authorities.
Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says nearly 15,900 people have been killed in the territory, about 70 per cent of them women and children, during Israel’s relentless air, artillery and naval bombardments alongside its ground campaign.
The toll has sparked global alarm and mass demonstrations.
“PLEADING FOR ADVICE ON WHERE TO FIND SAFETY”
Israel’s military posted a map on X on Monday morning with around a quarter of the city of Khan Younis marked off in yellow as a territory that must be evacuated at once. Three arrows pointed south and west, telling people to head further towards the Mediterranean Sea and the Egyptian border.
Many of those taking flight were already displaced from other areas, many sleeping rough under makeshift shelters with their few remaining belongings in plastic bags.
Tanks, armoured personnel carriers and bulldozers were seen on Monday near the southern city of Khan Younis, which is packed with internally displaced Palestinians, witnesses told AFP.
At the crowded entrance to the city’s Nasser hospital, ambulances and private cars delivered dazed, bloodied and dust-covered survivors.
Hoping to flee the bombardments, others continued to move further south, their belongings piled onto donkey carts, battered vehicles and even camels, but air strikes followed them right to the southern border.
“People are pleading for advice on where to find safety,” Thomas White, Gaza director for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “We have nothing to tell them.”
Amin Abu Hawli, 59, said Israeli vehicles were 2km inside Gaza in the village of al-Qarara, while Moaz Mohammed, 34, said Israeli tanks were moving down the strip’s main north-south highway, the Salah al-Din road.
The military was trying to cut the road between Deir al-Balah in central Gaza and Khan Younis, “firing bullets and tank shells at cars and people trying to move through the area,” Mohammed said.
The army said it was taking “aggressive” action against “Hamas and other terrorist organisations” in Khan Younis, warning that the Salah al-Din road in the north and east of the city “constitutes a battlefield”.
TRAPPED UNDER RUBBLE
Walaa Abu Libda found shelter at Deir al-Balah’s Al-Aqsa hospital but said her four-year-old daughter remained trapped under rubble.
“I don’t know if she is dead or alive,” said Libda, one of an estimated 1.8 million people displaced in Gaza – roughly three-quarters of the population.
As many as 80 per cent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes in an Israeli bombing campaign that has reduced much of the crowded coastal strip to a desolate wasteland.
Medical officials in the enclave say the bombing has killed more than 15,500 people, with thousands more missing and feared buried in rubble.
FIGHTING RESUMED FRIDAY POST TRUCE
Three more Israeli soldiers were killed in clashes in the northern Gaza Strip, raising the number of troop deaths there to 75, the army said on Monday.
Full-scale fighting resumed Friday after the collapse of a week-long truce brokered by Qatar with support from the United States and Egypt, during which 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
More than two dozen Thai and other captives were also released from Gaza.
With at least 137 hostages still held in Gaza, according to the Israeli military, Hamas has ruled out more releases until a permanent ceasefire is agreed.
More air strikes also hit northern Gaza where Hamas’s armed wing reported clashes with Israeli tanks.
Rocket salvos were again fired from Gaza towards Israeli territory.
AIRSTRIKE “LIKE AN EARTHQUAKE”
In the southern Gazan city of Rafah, resident Abu Jahar al-Hajj said an air strike near his home felt “like an earthquake”.
“Pieces of concrete started falling on us,” he said.
International Committee of the Red Cross president Mirjana Spoljaric, visiting Gaza, described the suffering as “intolerable”
Conditions worsened further on Monday with all mobile and telephone services across Gaza severed “due to the cut-off of main fibre routes from the Israeli side,” the PalTel company said.
Gazans were already short of food, water and other essentials including fuel.
Source: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/world/israeli-hamas-war-tanks-southern-gaza-civilians-3964516
