Israel announced yesterday evening that it would expand its ground operations in the Gaza Strip at night. It is currently unclear how far this will go. The mobile phone network and internet in the Gaza Strip have completely collapsed.
Explosions that brightly light up the night sky. Fireballs shooting into the air, loud explosions, shots and tanks rolling into northern Gaza. Eyewitnesses and journalists who barely manage to send news from Gaza report this.
Renowned journalist Jack Khoury from the Haaretz daily newspaper publishes images and videos from a journalist in Gaza showing massive airstrikes and artillery fire. The journalist, who is based in northern Gaza, speaks of an unprecedented attack from the air, land and sea. There are many injured people and the medical teams cannot reach the locations. In addition, the mobile phone network and the Internet were down on a large scale.
No way to communicate
This was confirmed by the Palestinian telecommunications company Paltel. The reason is the air raids. Aid organizations such as the Palestinian Red Crescent and the World Health Organization as well as numerous media outlets also report that they can no longer reach their employees in Gaza.
Clinics and aid organizations could not work without telephones and the Internet, wrote Lynn Hastings, United Nations humanitarian coordinator in the Palestinian Territories, on Platform X.
Hamas speaks of operations in the north of the Gaza Strip
The military wing of the Islamist organization Hamas, the Al-Qassam Brigades, claimed late in the evening that there had been ground operations by the Israeli army and violent clashes in Beit Hanun in the north of the Gaza Strip and east of the Al-Bureij refugee camp. Both places are close to the border. The information provided by the Al-Kassam Brigades could not be independently verified.
The Israeli military said on Saturday morning (local time) that it had attacked 150 underground targets, including tunnels, rooms and infrastructure. Several Hamas terrorists were also killed.
Conflict parties as a source
In the current situation, information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by the Palestinian and Israeli conflict parties cannot be directly verified by an independent body.
Hamas is said to be hiding under hospitals
Last night, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari announced that Israel was escalating attacks in Gaza. “Our air force is currently massively attacking underground targets in Gaza, terrorist infrastructure. The ground troops are expanding their activities,” said Hagari. In addition to the command center of the terrorist organization Hamas under the largest hospital in Gaza’s north, the army is aware of other hospitals that Hamas uses as hideouts. The army wants to provide evidence of this later.
A spokesman for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the turnaround is now beginning, Hamas will feel our wrath.” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Stayyeh told an Arabic media that the internet and mobile phone outage in Gaza was an attempt to create darkness to commit crimes. “What is happening in Gaza is for the ground invasion”. Jordanian Foreign Minister Aiman Safadi is also talking about the start of a ground war. Israel has previously rejected an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, as called for by the UN General Assembly.