Fierce battles as Israel pushes deep into Gaza city
Clashes spread to Gaza City as the Israeli army advanced deeper into the city. As fighting intensified in multiple areas, the Israeli army announced control of Hamas leadership centers, while the Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed killing soldiers and destroying tanks and vehicles.
This was accompanied by the Israeli army tightening the siege on all hospitals in northern Gaza, and moving towards the only hospital that remained partially operational (Al-Baptist Hospital), in light of the grave tragedy of the besieged residents left in Gaza without electricity, water, food or medicine.
Citizens of Gaza City told Asharq Al-Awsat that they have become truly besieged since the arrival of the Israeli army in their areas and neighborhoods, they cannot meet their basic needs and cannot leave their homes due to Israeli attacks . According to testimonies from residents of Gaza City, drones, tanks and soldiers are targeting everything that moves in the streets of Gaza, and citizens have been killed without anyone being able to reach them.
Israeli forces arrived in Palestine Square in the center of the city and entered various areas of Gaza Governorate, raiding homes, killing, arresting and interrogating Gazans in a scene reminiscent of what they are doing in the West Bank .
Israel is seeking to completely control Gaza City in an attempt to create a security situation similar, it seems, to that of the West Bank, allowing its army to carry out incursions, raids and killings whenever it pleases.
A source in the Palestinian factions of Gaza City said: “The resistance leadership is aware of Israel’s attempt to create a new reality in the Gaza Strip, but its forces will not enjoy a minute’s rest here, and are facing a fight fierce, continuous and continuous resistance on all fronts and at all times, and they suffer great losses.” The source added: “Gaza will resist until the end, it will not surrender and it will not raise the white flag.”
On the 39th day of the war, the Hamas-affiliated Al-Qassam Brigades announced that their fighters had killed 9 Israeli soldiers, including 7 killed “at zero range” north of Gaza City, and two soldiers “at range zero”. ” in Beit Hanoun. Al-Qassam claimed, in a series of statements, to have bombed Tel Aviv with a volley of missiles, to have destroyed tanks, vehicles and troop transports and to have targeted concentrations of Israeli army with various anti-armored and anti-personnel weapons.
The Israeli army admitted that many of its soldiers were killed and said that Sergeant Roy Marom and Major (res.) Raz Abu Alafia were killed and four others were wounded, bringing the total number of soldiers killed in the ground operation north of Gaza. at 46.
On the other hand, the Israeli army announced that its soldiers seized the central control centers and government symbols of the Hamas movement in Gaza City and killed members of Al-Qassam. An army statement read: “So far, forces of the 162nd Division have found more than 160 tunnel openings, attacked approximately 2,800 terrorist infrastructures and killed approximately 1,000 members and leaders of the terrorist organization (Hamas). In the last few hours, operational control of the Al-Shati field was achieved. As part of the division’s activity in the Gaza Strip, forces of the 162nd Division penetrated strategic and vital properties of the terrorist organization (Hamas), including: Force Site 17, Hamas security square, Al-Rantisi hospital , which the terrorist organization used for military activities and for the detention of kidnappers, and the Badr site, according to Israeli advertising.
The statement also spoke of control of “the main police headquarters, an engineering college, the home of the Gaza governor, training sites and security offices, as well as the headquarters of the Central Qassam Brigade in Gaza City , which was previously led by Ayman Nofal was assassinated at the beginning of the war.”
As the army continued the war, many hospitals went out of service.
Osama Hamdan, an official of the Hamas movement, said that Israel’s bombing and ground invasion of the Gaza Strip had led to the mothballing of 25 out of 35 hospitals in the besieged Strip.
The Israeli army surrounds the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza city and claims that the “Al-Qassam” command center is located under it, as well as the Al-Rantisi, Al-Ayoun, Al-Nasr, Mental hospitals Health and Jerusalem.
The army is preventing any movement to and from the besieged hospitals and on Monday night showed a video which, according to army spokesman Daniel Hagari, is a version denied by Hamas and the Gaza Ministry of Health.
As the siege of hospitals tightened, doctors at Al-Shifa Hospital were forced on Tuesday to bury the bodies of dozens of citizens in the square outside.
Journalists at the scene said citizens, medical and administrative teams volunteered to dig a mass grave in the compound’s courtyard and were able to bury around 100 bodies.
There is intense communication to remove patients and children from hospitals, but this seems almost impossible.
In parallel with the ground battles, Israel continued to shell various areas of the Gaza Strip, including the Khan Yunis area in the southern Gaza Strip, which, according to the Israeli army, should be a safe zone.
The Gaza Ministry of Health announced on Tuesday that “the number of martyrs has risen to 11,451 since the beginning of the Israeli aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and the wounded are approximately 31,700, of which 4,630 are children, 3,130 women and 682 elderly people, while the number of injured reached around 29,000.”