The Israeli army encircles Gaza City… and prepares for a new and long phase
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israeli forces had penetrated the outskirts of Gaza City, stressing that nothing would stop them, on the 27th day of the war, which also witnessed fierce clashes and violent resistance from the “Qassam Brigades,” which clashed with the Israeli army at close range, causing Dead and wounded among its ranks.
Later, on Thursday evening, the Israeli army announced the encirclement of Gaza City, six days after the start of its ground incursion. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said that Israeli forces “completed the encirclement of Gaza City.”
Netanyahu said, while he was among Israeli soldiers, and later in a press conference with Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, “Our forces have penetrated the outskirts of Gaza City. We are making progress, and we have achieved very impressive successes.” Nothing will stop us, we will move forward, we will advance and we will win.” Netanyahu’s announcement came confirming the Israeli army’s intention to enter Gaza City in the center of the Strip, after it surrounded it yesterday from all axes, in light of violent resistance from the Palestinian factions, which led to the killing of a number of Israeli forces.
Encirclement of Gaza City
Israeli forces advanced through several axes from the northern Gaza Strip, reaching the outskirts of Gaza City on Thursday. Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy said that over the past few days, army fighters have been working in Gaza City and encircling it from all directions, acknowledging that his forces are waging a war with a cruel enemy and paying a painful and heavy price. This was also confirmed by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant, who said that “the pictures “Coming from the battle is painful, and our tears fall when we see the soldiers of the Givati Brigade fall.”
Army spokesman Daniel Hagari explained that his forces reached deep into the Gaza Strip, but only after engaging in violent and long clashes and being exposed to anti-tank missiles, explosive devices and hand grenades. The Israeli army is trying to enter Gaza City; The largest governorate in the Gaza Strip is the “Al-Shifa” Hospital, which Israel says is the “Al-Qassam” command center located below. Al-Shifa is about 3 kilometers away from the location of the Israeli forces, but progress towards it seems complicated and difficult.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant in a previous security assessment session at the Israeli army headquarters (dpa)
Long task
General Itzik Cohen, commander of the 162nd Division in the Israeli army, said that the mission is still long, and there is still a lot of work. Israel is preparing for more intense and violent battles as it reaches the strongest Al-Qassam defensive lines. The Israeli army in Gaza lost 20 officers and soldiers in two days, including 11 soldiers in a Tiger armored personnel carrier, two other soldiers when their tank passed over an explosive device, another by mortar shells, and two others in direct confrontations.
On Thursday morning, the Israeli army announced the killing of reserve lieutenant Yuval Zilber (25 years old) from Ramat Gan, who was a company commander, and was killed in clashes with Hamas gunmen. It also later announced the killing of a battalion commander, and 4 soldiers were seriously injured in the ongoing fighting. In the Gaza Strip. The occupation army said that the commander of the 53rd Battalion in the 188th Brigade of the army, Lieutenant Colonel Salman Habka (33 years old) from the village of Jat, was killed in northern Gaza, and 4 soldiers were seriously injured during the fighting. Habka is the highest-ranking official killed in the Israeli army since the start of the ground confrontation.
Part of the destruction in the Bureij camp on November 2 (AFP)
Clashes from point zero
Despite the Israeli advance towards Gaza City, the Al-Qassam Brigades announced on Thursday that more soldiers had been killed in ambushes, destroyed tanks and armored vehicles, and engaged in clashes from point zero, before bombarding Tel Aviv with a heavy barrage of missiles, and northern Israel from the Lebanon side as well. . Al-Qassam pledged to defeat the Israeli army.
As the fighting intensified, Israel continued to bomb populated areas in the Gaza Strip, killing more Palestinians, focusing on the refugee camps near Gaza City. The Israeli army said that it struck 12,000 Hamas targets in Gaza, but more women and children were killed on the ground.
The government media office in Gaza said, “The occupation claims to bomb 12,000 military targets inside the Gaza Strip, and reality proves that its targets are residential neighborhoods, the homes of citizens, women and children, and gatherings of citizens in front of bakeries, hospitals, and churches.” The office added: “The amount of explosives dropped on the Gaza Strip exceeds 25 thousand tons, meaning about 70 tons per square kilometer.”
The media office also accused “the Israeli occupation of focusing on bombing the most dense and populated refugee camps, in the last days and hours, by targeting residential squares in the Jabalia, Al-Shati, Al-Burij and Al-Maghazi camps.” He added: “These raids caused widespread destruction of dozens of residential homes, and dozens of martyrs and hundreds of wounded, in a new confirmation of the occupier’s desire to raise the human cost of the victims of this brutal aggression.”
Israeli bombing on the Bureij camp leaves deaths and destruction in Gaza (AP)
Bombing of Bureij camp
On Thursday, Israel bombed the Bureij camp and wiped out a residential neighborhood, after bombing Jabalia and the beach. It also bombed schools containing displaced people. The Ministry of Health said, “The toll of martyrs and wounded among our people as a result of the ongoing aggression against the Gaza Strip and the West Bank has risen to 9,159 martyrs and more than 24,000 wounded.”
Politically, Hamas rejected American interference in the future of the Gaza Strip, and Hamas leader Osama Hamdan condemned the White House’s statements regarding the future of Gaza, accusing the United States of trying to form a Palestinian political leadership according to its standards. He stressed that “choosing the leadership of the Palestinian people is a purely Palestinian matter that takes place through elections.”
Hamas said that the White House’s statements regarding working on an international regional consensus to manage the Gaza Strip after the end of the aggression on Gaza are impudent and unacceptable, as the free Palestinian people are not the ones upon whom guardianship is imposed. She added, in a statement on Thursday, that “the attempts of blatant intervention by the United States to impose a new reality that suits them and the size of the Zionist occupation in the Gaza Strip are completely rejected, and will be confronted by our Palestinian people with full force.” The movement said in a statement, “The decision to arrange the Palestinian situation is the decision of the people, and they alone are capable of determining their fate, future, and interests.”
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2023-11-02 19:05:34
