Israel on Monday (Nov 6) pounded Gaza with “significant” strikes as soldiers battled Hamas forces in the besieged territory, ignoring ceasefire calls by UN aid agencies who condemned surging civilian deaths in the month-long conflict.
Israeli troops and Hamas fighters engaged in house-to-house combat in densely populated Gaza, where the war has sent 1.5 million people fleeing to other parts of the territory in a desperate search for cover.
“We will take the fight to Hamas wherever they are, underground, above ground”, Israeli army spokesman Jonathan Conricus said at a briefing Monday, repeating calls for civilians to leave the urban war zone in the north of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.
“We will be able to dismantle Hamas, stronghold after stronghold, battalion after battalion, until we achieve the ultimate goal, which is to rid the Gaza Strip – the entire Gaza Strip – of Hamas.”
Conricus again accused Hamas of building tunnels underneath hospitals, schools and places of worship in Gaza to hide fighters, plan attacks and store ammunition – a charge the militant group has repeatedly denied.
“This strike is like an earthquake,” Gaza City resident Alaa Abu Hasera said, in a devastated area where entire blocks were reduced to rubble.
Israel launched a massive bombing campaign after the Palestinian militants staged the worst attack in the country’s history.
In their Oct 7 attack, Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 240 others hostage.
The health ministry in Gaza, which is run by Hamas, says more than 9,770 people, many of them women and children, have been killed in Israeli strikes and the intensifying ground campaign since the war began.
Israel has resisted calls for a halt in the fighting, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken touring the region calling for “pauses” while rejecting Arab countries’ demands for a ceasefire.
Israeli troops now encircle Gaza City, effectively splitting the territory in two, with “significant” strikes carried out, army spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Sunday.
Shortly before the strikes, internet and telephone lines were cut, Hagari said, adding that the strikes would continue in the days to come.
“ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”
Israel has distributed leaflets and sent text messages ordering Palestinian civilians in northern Gaza to head south, but a US official said Saturday at least 350,000 civilians remain in the worst-hit areas.
On Sunday, the health ministry said 45 people were killed in Israeli strikes on a refugee camp in central Gaza, leaving people searching through the rubble.
“Are there any survivors?” shouted Said al-Najma, as he tried to shift the blocks of concrete strewn across the road in the camp.
“They brought down an entire street on the heads of women and children without any notice,” he said.
Source: CNA
