Hamas Says Ammo Left Behind
The next stage is a ground invasion that “will take a long time,” war minister Yoav Gallant told a small group of foreign reporters on Friday. Gallant said the ground invasion would include large forces, backed by airstrikes, and that it would be followed by a third phase of lower-intensity fighting.
The Palestinian death toll has soared past 7,300 as the Zionist regime has carried out waves of devastating airstrikes on buildings in Gaza. The Gaza Health Ministry, which tracks the toll, released a detailed list of names and ID numbers on Thursday, to counter suggestions by U.S. President Joe Biden and others that it was inflating casualty figures.
The airstrikes have flattened entire neighborhoods, causing a level of death and destruction unseen in the last four wars between Israel and Hamas. More than a million people have fled their homes, with some heeding Israeli orders to evacuate to the south, but then targeted by the Zionist regime.
At least 7,326 Palestinians, including 3,038 children, have been martyred in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday.
An additional 110 people, including 30 children, have been killed in the occupied West Bank and East Al-Quds.
Despite Israel’s continuing campaign of devastating airstrikes, rockets continue to damage areas as far away as Tel Aviv.
At least one rocket fired from Gaza hit a building in Tel Aviv on Friday, wounding three people, Israeli media have said. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack.
Israeli tanks ventured into Gaza for a brief incursion overnight Wednesday, which the occupying regime of says was in preparation for the next phase of the war, but withdrew briskly.
Hamas said its fighters detected the Israeli soldiers and forced them to retreat and leave behind ammunition after an exchange of fire.
More than 1,400 Zionists have been killed in the war. Hamas is holding at least 229 captives inside Gaza, according to Israel.
Palestinian resistance fighters have fired thousands of rockets into Occupied Palestine since the war began.
Settlers in the occupied West Bank and other Zionists are arming themselves at the encouragement of the regime in the wake of the Oct. 7 operation, raising concerns the practice will escalate to more Israeli violence.
Four Palestinians died in an overnight raid in West Bank.
Meanwhile, Israeli forces assaulted Palestinian worshippers in occupied East Al-Quds and blocked them from accessing Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to local media.
Videos shared by Palestinian outlets showed Zionist forces preventing people from going through.
Israeli forces have heavily cracked down on Palestinians in Al-Quds since 7 October, erecting checkpoints, deploying heavily armed soldiers and arbitrarily stopping and beating young men.
Palestinian religious affairs officials in Al-Quds said only around 5,000 people attended Friday prayer at Al-Aqsa Mosque, a significantly lower number than in normal circumstances.
As the plight of Palestinian civilians grows more desperate, the issue of humanitarian pauses or ceasefire agreements in the Hamas-run coastal enclave was to come before the 193-member UN General Assembly on Friday in a draft resolution submitted by Arab states calling for a ceasefire.
Unlike in the Security Council where resolutions on Gaza aid failed this week, no country holds a veto in the General Assembly. Resolutions are non-binding, but carry political weight.
At a UN meeting on Gaza on Thursday, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian UN ambassador, said 70 percent of those killed in Gaza were children and women.
“Is this the war some of you are defending? Can this war be defended? These are crimes. This is barbarism,” he said.
More than 613,000 people were estimated to have been made homeless by the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and were being sheltered by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
The same agency has said it may run out of fuel within days. Gaza’s sole power station shut down for lack of fuel days after the start of the war, and the occupying regime of Israel has barred all fuel deliveries.
“The siege means that food, water and fuel — basic commodities — are being used to collectively punish more than two million people, among them, a majority of children and women,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, told reporters.
“What’s the point of bombarding an entire population ... half of whom are children?” said Francesca Albanese, United Nations special rapporteur on the Palestinian Territories. Albanese says Israel is not only committing war crimes against Palestinians, but also crimes against humanity.
Hamas on Friday denied the Israeli military’s claims that it uses the largest hospital in Gaza as a base, and warned that the Zionist regime was attempting to justify an attack on the facility.
“We categorically affirm the falsehood of the Israeli occupation’s story about the use of Al-Shifa Hospital for military purposes, or the presence of any Hamas leadership in it,” the group said in a statement.
“We call on the UN and Arab and Islamic countries to intervene immediately to stop the madness of bombing and destroying medical facilities,” it added.
Senior Hamas figure Izzat al-Rishq said the remarks by Israel were a “prelude” to targeting the hospital, which is currently sheltering around 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
“These lies represent a prelude to committing a new massacre against our people, which will be greater than the massacre of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital,” Rishq said.
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