DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli troops early Monday had surrounded Gaza City and cut off the northern part of the besieged territory as communications lost for several hours across Gaza overnight were gradually being restored.
Troops are expected to enter the city Monday or Tuesday, Israeli media reported, and militants who have prepared for years are expected to fight street by street using a vast network of tunnels. Casualties will likely rise on both sides in the month-old war, which has already killed more than 9,700 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
Some 1.5 million Palestinians, or around 70% of the population, have fled their homes since the war began with a bloody Hamas incursion into Israel that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. Food, medicine, fuel and water are running low, and U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters are beyond capacity, with many sleeping on the streets outside.
Israel has so far rejected U.S. suggestions for a pause in fighting to facilitate humanitarian aid deliveries and the release of some of the estimated 240 captives seized by Hamas in its Oct. 7 raid. Israel has also dismissed calls for a broader cease-fire from increasingly alarmed Arab countries — including Jordan and Egypt, which made peace with it decades ago.
A Jordanian military cargo plane air-dropped medical aid to a field hospital in northern Gaza, King Abdullah II said early Monday. It appeared to be the first such airdrop of the war, raising the possibility of another avenue for aid delivery besides Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza.
The situation remains dire in the north. Some 800,000 people have heeded Israeli military orders to flee to southern Gaza, even though Israel had continued airstrikes in the area. Strikes in central and southern Gaza — the purported safe zone — killed at least 53 people on Sunday.
Hundreds of thousands remain in Gaza City and other parts of the north. Some 2,000 people, many carrying only what they…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply