NEW DELHI, Oct 30: The Israeli military on Sunday signaled a heavier assault on Gaza and warned with increasing “urgency” that Palestinian civilians should move to the southern part of the coastal Gaza Strip.
The number of soldiers who had been sent into Gaza since Friday remained unclear. The Israeli military’s chief spokesman said that the country was “gradually expanding the ground activity and the scope of our forces,” and “progressing through the stages of the war according to plan.”
Videos released by the Israeli military and geolocated by The Times indicated that there were at least three separate places where troops had crossed the border into northern Gaza.
Phone and internet service had been knocked out in the enclave as Israel began an intensified ground operation on Friday. Connectivity in Gaza partially returned yesterday morning, according to the head of the main Palestinian telecommunications company.
The communications executive said that his company had not made any repairs and suspected that Israel was responsible for the service stoppage. Two American officials told The Times that the U.S. believed Israel was responsible for the communications loss. Officials in Israel have declined to comment on accusations that the country instigated the blackout.
Here’s the latest.
The toll: Deaths in Gaza since Oct. 7 have surpassed 8,000 people, which includes 3,342 children, a spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry said yesterday.
Hospitals: Al Quds Hospital in Gaza City said that it received a warning from Israel that it should evacuate before an airstrike hit it — and that it could not follow the order. An Israeli official declined to say whether the military told the hospital that it would be directly targeted. The director general of the World Health Organization called the reports “deeply concerning.”
Fuel: Israel has committed to allowing 100 trucks of aid per day into Gaza, a senior U.S. official said. The aid would include limited fuel for the U.N. to distribute to key humanitarian infrastructure.
Lebanon: Israel said that it had responded to attacks from the north and bombarded targets belonging to Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that has sought to show solidarity with Hamas. Both groups are backed by Iran, whose president, Ebrahim Raisi, again raised the specter of a wider conflict by saying yesterday that Israel had crossed a “red line which may force everyone to take action.”
