2023-10-30 07:58:02
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops and armored vehicles entered the Gaza Strip on Monday and reached built-up areas, while medical and United Nations personnel warned that the bombings were hitting closer to hospitals, where dozens of Thousands of Palestinians have taken refuge along with thousands of wounded.
Ground operations expanded a day after 33 trucks carrying food, medicine and other supplies entered Gaza from Egypt, the largest humanitarian aid convoy since the war between Israel and Hamas began. Aid workers said Monday that aid was still not meeting needs in Gaza, which has been under siege for weeks.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians had surpassed 8,000 people, mostly women and children, as tanks and infantry undertook what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “second phase.” ” of the war started by the brutal Hamas incursion on October 7.
The scale of the victims is unprecedented in decades of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. Some 1,400 people died on the Israeli side, many of them civilians killed in the initial attack and also a record number.
Israeli forces appeared to be pushing deeper into Gaza from the north. Videos released Monday by the military showed armored vehicles between buildings and soldiers taking positions inside a house. The exact location was unknown, but military images released on Saturday showed troops passing through sandy areas near the border fence in northern Gaza.
The army said Monday that its troops had killed dozens of militants overnight who attacked from tunnels and inside buildings, and that their attacks had destroyed a building used by Hamas as a supply point. More than 600 military targets, including weapons depots and anti-tank missile launching positions, have been attacked in recent days, according to the army. It was not possible to independently verify the reports.
Hamas’ military branch said its militants clashed with Israeli troops who entered the northwest Gaza Strip with light weapons and anti-tank missiles. Palestinian militants have continued to fire rockets into Israel, including its commercial hub, Tel Aviv.
Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people regained communications on Sunday after a day without internet or phone service during bombing that residents described as the most intense of the war.
Israel says most Gaza residents have followed its orders to flee to the south of the besieged territory, but hundreds of thousands of people remain in the north, in part because Israel has also bombed targets in so-called safe zones. More than 1.4 million people in Gaza have fled their homes.
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Magdy reported from Cairo and Keath from Athens. Associated Press writers Julia Frankel and Amy Teibel in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
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