[News] Israel ‘expanding’ troops in Gaza, Hamas to counter with ‘full force’

[Anti-Imperialist News]

*Israel says it’s ‘expanding’ ground activities in Gaza Strip after
telecommunications were knocked out.*
[image: Israeli troops on a tank]
Israeli tanks head towards the Gaza Strip border in southern Israel on
October 12, 2023 [File: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP Photo]
Published On 28 Oct 2023
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/28/israeli-troops-in-gaza-amid-blackout-hamas-to-counter-with-full-force
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Israeli forces have announced that they are “expanding” ground activities
in northern Gaza as the besieged enclave faces the largest bombardment of
Israeli attacks since the start of the war.

Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, has promised to meet attacks with
“full force” in response to the ground operations overnight, with the
Israeli army saying that its soldiers were still in the field on Saturday
morning.

Israeli troops, backed by tanks, launched brief overnight incursions into
Gaza on Wednesday
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/26/israel-stages-large-overnight-ground-raid-into-gaza-strip>
and Thursday
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/27/israel-conducts-second-ground-raid-into-northern-gaza-with-air-support>
night, but this third and largest offensive marks an escalation of their
ground manoeuvres. The bombing completely destroyed hundreds of buildings
and houses overnight, the Gaza Civil Defence said.

“We attacked above the ground and underground, we attacked terror
operatives of all ranks, everywhere,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant
said in a video statement on Saturday. “The instructions for the forces are
clear: the operation will continue until a new order.”

The ground raids come amid heavy air bombardments and Israel knocking out
communications
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/28/gaza-under-communications-blackout-amid-warnings-of-cover-for-war-crimes>
in Gaza to create a near-blackout of information, largely cutting off the
besieged population of 2.3 million from contact with the outside world.

United Nations officials, NGOs and media, including Al Jazeera, had
difficulty reaching their teams on the ground.

On Saturday morning, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud managed to report live from
Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

He described what Palestinians lived through as “the most difficult and
bloodiest night since the beginning of this war”.

Palestinian health authorities say that more than 7,703 Palestinians have
been killed since October 7, when Israel began its aerial bombardment of
the Strip. This, after Hamas launched an attack inside Israel that killed
at least 1,405 people there.

Describing the events that took place overnight, Al Jazeera’s Mahmoud said,
“It all started when the Israeli military spokesperson distributed a map
asserting that al-Shifa hospital is the headquarters of Hamas leadership …
Hamas then denied
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/27/hamas-rejects-israeli-claim-over-installations-under-al-shifa-hospital>
it has any rooms underneath the hospital. An hour later, Gaza experienced a
complete blackout.

“At about 7pm local time, a major attack by sea and land took place,
concentrated on the northern part of the Gaza Strip, around the vicinity of
al-Shifa hospital,” he said.

It was difficult to get an exact number of casualties at this stage, but
“we have been hearing reports that hundreds of people have been killed in
those areas and emergency services were not able to get to them in time to
help”, Mahmoud said, adding that families in southern Gaza have also not
been able to reach their relatives in the north.

“The problem with cutting Gaza from the outside world has made people feel
it could be a genocide in the making without them knowing what has happened
to their relatives,” he said.

[image: INTERACTIVE-LIVE-TRACKER-GAZA-OCT27-2023-1100GMT_LIVE-TRACKER]

Late on Friday, Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said ground
forces were “expanding their activity” in Gaza and “acting with great force
… to achieve the objectives of the war”. Israel has amassed hundreds of
thousands of troops along the border before an expected wider ground
offensive.

Israel also claimed it had killed the man in charge of air operations for
Hamas, describing him as one of the planners of the October 7 attacks, but
this has not been independently verified.

Overnight into Saturday, warplanes struck 150 tunnels and underground
bunkers in northern Gaza, the military said. Hamas’s extensive underground
installations, many of them located under Gaza City in the north of the
territory, are seen as key targets of the offensive.

On Saturday, Hagari said the army was “progressing through the stages” of
the war in Gaza.

He said, “Infantry, armoured, engineering and artillery forces are
participating in the [military] activity, accompanied by heavy [air] fire.”

He later reissued a call for Palestinians to evacuate the northern Gaza
Strip. “For your immediate safety, we urge all residents of northern Gaza
and Gaza City to temporarily relocate south … The impending [Israeli
military] operation is set to neutralise the threat of Hamas with precision
and intensity,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hamas fired some rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli
border towns on Saturday. Sirens also sounded in the cities of Tel Aviv and
Bat Yam, Israeli media reported, but there were no reports of damage or
casualties.

[image: UN resolution calling for humanitarian truce passes]
On Friday, the United Nations General Assembly voted
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/27/unga-calls-for-humanitarian-truce-in-israel-hamas-war-how-countries-voted>
in
favour of a non-binding resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian
truce between Israel and Hamas.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom
Ghebreyesus, said the blackout was “making it impossible” for ambulances to
reach the injured in Gaza.

“Evacuation of patients is not possible under such circumstances, nor to
find safe shelter,” he said in a post
<https://twitter.com/DrTedros/status/1718160325323735365> on X, formerly
known as Twitter. He said the WHO was not able to contact its staff and
health facilities.

On Saturday, Hagari said Israel will allow aid trucks with food, water and
medicine into the Gaza Strip during the day.
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