[ad_1] Israel has announced it is “expanding operations” in Gaza and has warned remaining residents of Gaza City to move south. At a Friday evening
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Israel has announced it is “expanding operations” in Gaza and has warned remaining residents of Gaza City to move south.
At a Friday evening press conference, local time, the Israeli military said it was increasing its strikes in Gaza “in a very significant way”.
Extensive and intense bombing of the northern area of Gaza has been seen on Friday night, local time, while internet services have been cut. Rockets have also been fired from Gaza into Israel overnight.
On Friday, a Hamas rocket made it past Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome system and injured three when it hit an apartment building in Tel Aviv.
‘Moment of truth’
UN secretary general Antonio Gueterres posted on X a short time ago to call for a ceasefire, saying “this is a moment of truth”.
“I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Middle East, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving supplies at the scale needed,” he said. “Everyone must assume their responsibilities. This is a moment of truth. History will judge us all.”
It comes as a ground invasion of by Israel could be imminent after two days of overnight incursions by tanks into the Hamas controlled Gaza Strip.
But around 200 hostages remain in the Palestinian territory with just four freed. Multiple nations, including the US, have pleaded for at the very least “humanitarian pauses” so the millions of Palestinians in Gaza can get access to food, water and international aid.
Israel declared war after 1400 people were killed on October 7 by Hamas in a bloody cross border raid. Subsequent air strikes by Israel on Gaza are now said to have killed as many as 7000 Palestinians, although the numbers have been disputed.
“We will continue to strike in Gaza City and around,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a televised address on Friday.
“In recent hours we have increased the attacks in Gaza. The air force widely attacks underground targets and terrorist infrastructure, very significantly.”
Internet, phones down: ‘Lost contact’
At around the same time as the Israeli military announced it was stepping up operations, communications went down on the Gaza Strip.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society has said that it has “completely lost contact” with its staff.
Israel has not commented on the communications outage.
But the Hamas government said Israel “cut communications and most of the internet” across the Gaza Strip.
The government’s media office accused Israel of taking the measure “to perpetrate massacres with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea,” as heavy strikes hit northern Gaza.
AFP journalists in Gaza confirmed they were only able to communicate in limited areas where they could connect to Israeli networks across the border.
Palestinian telecoms provider Jawwal announced “the total cut of all communication services and internet” in the territory.
“The heavy bombardment in the last hour destroyed all remaining international routes connecting Gaza to the outside world,” Jawwal wrote on its Facebook page.
Global internet monitor NetBlocks reported “a collapse in connectivity in the Gaza Strip with high impact to Paltel,” Jawwal’s owner, citing live network data.
“The company is the last remaining major operator to supply service as connectivity declines amid ongoing fighting with Israel,” NetBlocks wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Hamas command centre under hospital – Israel
Israel has accused Hamas of housing its main command centre beneath Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital. It is the biggest hospital in the territory.
It said entrances to the infamous tunnel network lead from the hospital grounds but Hamas has denied the accusations.
Earlier, US fighter jets carried out air strikes against two facilities in Syria.
It follows a number of rocket attacks against US bases in the Middle East. The US has said Iran had a role in the attacks.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said the sites were used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and militias backed by Tehran.
He added that the strikes were not directly connected to the situation in Israel and Gaza but rather were “narrowly tailored in self-defence”.
“Iran wants to hide its hand and deny its role in these attacks against our forces. We will not let them,” he said.
– with AFP.
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