Israel says it’s expanding its activities in Gaza as internet access dwindles
Israeli forces and civilians in Gaza: israel’s role in “genocide against the eyes of the press” and “the enemy wants to destroy our soul“
“In continuation of the raids we have carried out in the last few days, the ground forces are expanding their activity this evening,” said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defense Forces. He repeated Israel’s call for Palestinians to flee to southern Gaza where conditions, he said, would be “safer.”
Tens of thousands of Israeli soldiers are stationed around Gaza’s borders, and in recent days, Israeli tanks and troops have entered Gaza for limited incursions, supported by heavy airstrikes and artillery.
There were no phone calls or text messages on Friday. A barrage of airstrikes had caused a cut in key communications infrastructure, according to Paltel.
The company said the bombing in the last hour destroyed all the international routes that link Gaza to the outside world.
Difficulty contacting staff in Gaza was reported by aid groups, including the Red Cross.
“Hospitals & humanitarian operations can’t continue without communications, energy, food, water, meds. … Wars have rules. Civilians must be protected,” Lynn Hastings, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator in Gaza, wrote on X.
The ability of the teams to continue providing emergency medical services, especially since the central emergency number “101” is not accessible, is deeply concerned by the Red Crescent Society.
In response to the blackout, Hamas accused Israel of an “intention to commit more massacres and genocides away from the eyes of the press and the world.”
According to a Palestinian affairs expert, the goal of Hamas is to break down Israeli society which it sees as colonialist.
“They always believe that all of us should go back to Germany and Poland and whatever, even if we are from Morocco,” Chorev says. “This is really to break our spirit.”
A Hamas-led War on Gaza: New Details Emerge About Israeli-Led Fighters Who Sparked a New War with Israel
Israel has led to a travel and economic blockade on Gaza for the last 16 years. Israel says this is to contain attacks by Hamas after it took over Gaza in 2007 from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, now based solely in the occupied West Bank. Netanyahu’s longtime policy was to preserve this political division between the territories to prevent them from uniting into one Palestinian state.
“I’m not a radical Muslim, but I think those who belong to Hamas get involved in the education process, and then they hate the Jews or Israel, and that becomes part of the socialization process,” says Abusada. “That probably explains the brutality that took place on the 7th of October.”
There are around 20,000 to 25,000 militants in Hamas’ Qassam militant wing, according to Gaza experts Samir Ghattas of the Cairo-based Middle East Forum for Strategic Studies and National Security, and Harel Chorev of Tel Aviv University. They believe that around 5000 to 6,000 are members of Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds brigades.
The homes in the Kibbutz be’eri massacre were torn apart: kitchens were turned upside down and the elderly man’s walker was strewn over the floors. There is a smell in one house of a blood-soaked mattress.
The army collected terabytes of footage from the attacks, from the cameras retrieved from Gaza, as well as victims’ phones and neighborhood security cameras.
New details are emerging about the men who carried out brutal violence in Israel that started the current war and killed more than 7,000 Palestinians.
“We want to get the attention of the world,” said Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ political bureau. “Please, look at the Palestinians. We are subjected to torture andcollective punishment all the time. This is our message to the world.”
An official with Hamas told NPR that the group staged the attack to make a point about the restrictions on the Gaza Strip. Other Hamas leaders say they took hostages hoping for a grand prisoner exchange to free Palestinians in Israeli jails.
The New Israeli War with Israel: Mohammed and a Jewish Palestinian Mocking of the Fate of an Israeli Militant Revisited
Both his neighbor and his father spoke on condition of anonymity, and referred to Mohammed only by his first name, out of concern Israel could target them.
His father told NPR that he hopes God will be kind to him. “To be a martyr is a huge thing, and this is what he pursued. I hope God accepts him as a martyr.”
He said Mohammed had made it a mile or two inside Israel when an Israeli aircraft shot him — five bullets to the chest, one near the neck — and recited the shahada, Islam’s affirmation of faith, before he died from his wounds.
Mohammed’s neighbor said he vanished on the day of the attacks. His family only discovered what had transpired when a militant came back to Gaza with personal effects and Mohammed’s cellphone.
Everyone in the family and neighborhood knew he belonged to the militant wing of Islamic Jihad, a smaller Palestinian militia in Gaza that is closely aligned with Iran.
In an interview with NPR, his neighbor in Gaza said Mohammed had led an ordinary life. He didn’t finish his high school matriculation exam. He worked as a taxi driver, had a big wedding party with family and friends, and started a business selling food products.
They were young at the time. They were well-trained. They had some orders that they followed. They had a mix of motivations, tied to the unique conditions and ideologies that permeate life in Gaza.
Source: New details emerge about Hamas-led fighters who sparked a new war with Israel
Hamas fighters in Gaza have not been trained in Hezbollah, and a UN official says the operation is “failure”
The videos also capture the men’s heavy breathing, nervous pacing and shouted instructions. In one of the most gruesome scenes screened to foreign media, a man calls out for a knife and calls to cut off a wounded man’s head, before attempting to behead him with a garden hoe.
Ghattas believes that elite fighters in Gaza traveled to countries like Lebanon or Iran where they were taught the combat methods of Hezbollah. He thinks they came to Gaza to train the teams that conducted the attacks.
The Israeli army wouldn’t elaborate on the question of foreign training, but asserts there was Iranian involvement. Iran denies there was prior coordination.
Images of the pamphlets the military says it found with the Hamas fighters have been released and interrogation videos of several of the attackers have been released.
In a statement, Hamas called the operation a “failure” and said Israel took heavy losses. There were no casualties in Friday night’s fighting. There was no way that either claim could be confirmed.
Officials in the northern Gaza Strip said that the IDF fighter jets hit 150 underground targets, killing many Hamas operatives. Among those killed was Asem Abu Rakaba, the IDF said, describing him as an official who had helped to plan the Oct. 7 attack in which hundreds of Hamas fighters flooded across Gaza’s border and killed more than 1,400 Israeli soldiers and civilians. Abu Rakaba was responsible for the drones and paragliders used by Hamas that day, an IDF statement said.
The Hostiles and Missing Persons Families Forum (HOSTF): Is the Gaza Operation Really Endangered?
“Their death and assassination leads to a good advancement in the war’s stages and allows the forces on the ground to battle a weaker enemy,” Hagari added.
We are not in touch with our staff or health facilities. The director-general of WHO said in a Saturday post that he was worried about their safety.
NPR couldn’t reach local staff in Gaza. The U.N.’s top humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories said they had only been able to reach staff in Gaza via satellite phone.
Some of the doctors’ medical staffs are wondering what the benefit of the assistance they are receiving is. We are not able to help patients anymore. We can’t do anything for them,” said Dr. Matar in an interview with NPR Friday.
Hagari said that whoever will be in this area will receive food, water and medicine. Israel has repeatedly struck southern Gaza, including the densely populated areas of Khan Younis and Rafah, with airstrikes.
Nearly 230 hostages are still being held in Gaza by Hamas, according to Israeli officials. A group of families of hostages demands a meeting with Israel’s war cabinet to ensure that the operation does not endanger the hostages.
“This night was the most terrible of all nights. It was a long and sleepless night, against the backdrop of the major IDF operation in the Strip, and absolute uncertainty regarding the fate of the hostages held there, who were also subject to the heavy bombings,” said Liat Bell Sommer, a spokesperson for the group, which is called the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.
