22nd day of Israel-Gaza war
By Ali Karbalaei
TEHRAN- Hamas has said that Israel's ground incursion into the blockaded Gaza Strip via three directions on Saturday was a failed attempt by the occupying regime with the resistance inflicting losses on its troops.
It comes as Israel has cut off internet and communications in the Gaza Strip (in addition to its three-week blockade of desperately-needed water, food, fuel and medicine) amid the heaviest Israeli overnight bombardment on civilian targets in different parts of the entirely blockaded territory.
Hamas has said its forces are ready to confront Israeli attacks with "full force" after Israel announced it was expanding ground operations.
The resistance fighters engaged in fierce battles with Israeli troops in Gaza's northeastern town of Beit Hanoun and in the central area of al-Bureij, both located near the separation wall, the armed wing of Hamas announced.
"The al-Qassam brigades and all the Palestinian resistance forces are completely ready to confront the Zionist aggression with full force and frustrate its incursions," Hamas said.
"Netanyahu and his defeated army will not be able to achieve any military victory," It added.
In a statement, the movement said that the "enemy" fell into "ambushes prepared by the Palestinian resistance," noting that Hamas forces used Kornet missiles and Yasin missiles to repel the attacks.
The statement also said it expected the Israeli forces would "attempt to penetrate Gaza again," adding that the Israeli occupation forces used "helicopters to evacuate the wounded and dead from the battlefield."
A member of the Hamas leadership abroad, Ali Baraka, confirmed the failure of the Israeli incursion into the Gaza Strip on three axes, stressing that the occupation faced solid and cohesive resistance and its largest experimental ground incursion to date has failed.
Baraka said that the occupation fell into ambushes set up by the resistance on all the fronts it tried to advance on but withdrew, carrying dead and wounded soldiers.
The official revealed that the Israeli army suffered heavy losses from Friday night to Saturday, and its helicopters intervened to transport the dead and wounded.
Senior Hamas leader Osama Hamdan also spoke about the diminishing Israeli hopes to emerge victorious after the defeat it suffered on October 7.
Hamdan has called on everyone who possesses weapons under the context of Palestinian legitimacy to confront the Israeli occupation.
The Hamas leader stressed that Hamas intends to release civilian hostages but the indiscriminate Israeli bombing has made it extremely difficult to do so, adding that statements being announced by the United States do not reduce the extent of America's involvement in the aggression against Gaza.
From Friday night to Saturday the occupation intensified its bombing of the Gaza Strip, with heavy airstrikes targeting the eastern and northern regions in particular, coinciding with attempts to storm the tiny coastal enclave, which were repelled by the Palestinian resistance.
By Saturday evening local time, Palestinian media reported violent armed clashes on the eastern border of Khan Yunis, without any Israeli ground progress recorded so far.
The head of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies confirmed that "civilians are being subjected to the heaviest bombing Gaza has ever witnessed."
As Israeli bombs rained down on the Gaza Strip, the al-Qassam Brigades announced a number of retaliatory rocket barrages, including the bombing of "the Israeli Zikim base with a missile barrage in response to the Zionist massacres against civilians."
The Palestinian resistance also fired rocket salvoes toward the settlements of Beersheba and Ashkelon in response to the targeting of civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the al-Quds Brigades, announced it targeted a nearby Israeli military base with mortar shells.
Overnight reports indicated a renewed Israeli bombardment directed at the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital and the vicinity of the Al Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza.
Palestinian media reported on Saturday that more than 100 people were killed as a result of an overnight Israeli bombing that targeted a multi-story building that was housing displaced people at a coastal refugee camp in west of Gaza City.
Israeli fighter jets also struck a house in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, killing a large number of civilians and injuring many others.
Reports have also emerged of an Israeli artillery shell landing next to the Indonesian Hospital building in Bait Lahia, northern Gaza.
The Israeli bombing has knocked out the internet and communications across the Gaza Strip, a move that has been met with dismay by human rights organizations who say it threatens to cover up "mass atrocities."
Aid agencies have raised fears for their teams in Gaza after Israeli air strikes knocked out its internet and communications, meaning ambulances were unable to reach patients.
The Norwegian Refugee Council says the organization has lost contact with their 54 staff members in Gaza.
The World Health Organization issued a statement stating that "during a night of intense bombardment and ground incursions in Gaza, with reports of hostilities still continuing, health workers, patients and civilians have been subject to a total communication and electrical blackout."
It added, "Reports of bombardment near the Indonesia and Al Shifa hospitals are gravely concerning. The WHO reiterates that it is impossible to evacuate patients without endangering their lives."
Doctors Without Borders warned it is "deeply concerned about the situation in Gaza" and that it has "lost contact with its colleagues on the ground."
The international organization has emphasized its special concern now for patients, medical staff, and thousands of families seeking shelter at al-Shifa hospital and other health facilities, calling for the "absolute protection of all medical facilities, employees, and civilians throughout the Gaza Strip."
Meanwhile, the occupation forces, once again, targeted some areas of Gaza City with internationally banned white phosphorus munitions.
White phosphorus has been used over the past three weeks by the Israeli military both in Gaza and Lebanon, according to Human Rights Watch.
Upon contact, the weapon can burn people, thermally and chemically, it said.
The organization said it has verified videos taken in Lebanon and Gaza showing multiple airbursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over the Gaza City port and two rural locations along the Lebanon-occupied Palestine border.
It said the weapon's use "violates the international humanitarian law prohibition on putting civilians at unnecessary risk."
"Any time that white phosphorus is used in crowded civilian areas, it poses a high risk of excruciating burns and lifelong suffering," said Lama Fakih, the group's Middle East and North Africa director.
"White phosphorous is unlawfully indiscriminate when airburst in populated urban areas, where it can burn down houses and cause egregious harm to civilians."
Attacks using air-delivered incendiary weapons in civilian areas are prohibited under the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
An Israeli occupation army spokesman announced that "the Israeli ground forces are working to expand ground activities in Gaza."
The regime is pressing ahead with its deadly aggression against the civilian population of the Gaza Strip, for the 23rd day in a row, targeting residential homes, with the number of martyrs exceeding 7,300.
According to Gaza officials, there are also tens of thousands of Palestinians injured as well as missing people, with more than 1,000 civilians stuck under the rubble.
The regime has reissued an evacuation order to civilians in northern Gaza to move south, telling them their window to act before an "impending" military operation was closing.
International organizations say the order not only constitutes a war crime but that there is no safe haven for civilians in Southern Gaza to flee a devastating Israeli bombardment.
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