TEL AVIV/GAZA (dpa-AFX) – A good five weeks after the start of the Israeli ground offensive in the north of the Gaza Strip, the military is expanding its ground operations to the entire Palestinian territory. The soldiers took action against targets of the Islamist Hamas, said army spokesman Daniel Hagari on Sunday evening. Following instructions from the Israeli military, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled from the contested north of the sealed-off coastal area to the south – where there is now likely to be increased fighting on the ground. Meanwhile, leading US politicians urged Israel to better protect civilians during hostilities.
The army had fought hard and thoroughly in the northern Gaza Strip and was now doing the same in the southern Gaza Strip, Israel’s Chief of General Staff Herzi Halevi had said shortly before – without explicitly speaking of a ground offensive. Israeli ground troops have been deployed in the north since the end of October.
Eyewitnesses reported to the German Press Agency on Sunday that Israeli ground troops had advanced into an area east of the city of Khan Yunis in the south of the Gaza Strip. According to its own statements, the military has carried out massive air strikes in the south since the end of the ceasefire lasting several days on Friday. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, there have been around 10,000 air strikes on targets in the sealed-off Palestinian territory, the military said.
According to the Hamas health authority, more than 15,500 people have been killed and more than 41,000 others injured in the Gaza Strip. The information cannot currently be independently verified, but the United Nations and other observers point out that the authority’s figures have proven to be credible in the past. According to the UN, around 80 percent of the approximately 2.2 million inhabitants of the densely populated coastal area are now internally displaced.
Israel’s army continues bombardment in the Gaza Strip
On Sunday night, Israeli warplanes and helicopters attacked “terrorist targets,” including tunnel shafts, command centers and weapons depots, the military said. The Israeli army says it has found more than 800 tunnel shafts since the start of the Gaza war. Around 500 of them were destroyed, among other things, by explosions. Some of the tunnel shafts connected strategic Hamas facilities underground, it said. The information could not initially be independently verified.
Hamas authorities say there are many people buried
The spokesman reported numerous bodies under the rubble. There are also great difficulties in rescuing injured people and transporting them to hospitals. No place in the Gaza Strip is currently safe. An Israeli army spokesman called on residents of certain residential areas in the south of the Gaza Strip in Arabic to leave them and flee to designated other areas.
Unicef: Attacks in Gaza “immoral” and “certainly illegal”
The spokesman for the UN children’s fund Unicef, James Elder, sharply criticized the Israeli attacks during a visit to the south of the Gaza Strip. A “bloodbath” is taking place there that is “immoral” and that “will certainly be understood as illegal,” Elder told the Al-Jazeera news channel. Anyone who accepts this is making themselves guilty. “Silence is complicity,” said the visibly shaken Elder.
During his visit, he saw children everywhere with severe burns, shrapnel injuries, brain injuries and broken bones. Elder described the latest information about so-called “safe zones” for the population in Gaza as a “misrepresentation.” People are “moved to tiny patches of land” where there is only sand, no water, no sanitary facilities and no protection from the weather.
USA urges protection of civilians
US Vice President Kamala Harris issued a clear warning to Israel on Saturday. “Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the level of civilian suffering and the images and videos from the Gaza Strip are devastating,” she said in Dubai. In a conversation with Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Harris also reiterated that the US will “under no circumstances allow the forced relocation of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip or the West Bank, the siege of the Gaza Strip or the redrawing of the borders.”
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin appealed to Israel’s “moral responsibility” to protect civilians. “Driving them into the arms of the enemy replaces a tactical victory with a strategic defeat. That is why I have repeatedly made it clear to the Israeli leadership that protecting Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip is both a moral responsibility and a strategic imperative. ” Both Harris and Austin made it clear that there must be a political perspective for the Palestinians to have their own state alongside Israel.
Israeli government adviser Mark Regev rejected allegations that his country was not doing enough to protect civilians in Gaza. “We are making maximum efforts, perhaps even unprecedented in similar circumstances,” Regev told the BBC on Sunday. Hamas is also to blame for civilian deaths because it hides military infrastructure in residential areas.
The war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, carried out by terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other extremist groups on October 7th in Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip. On the Israeli side, more than 1,200 people were killed and around 240 hostages were taken to Gaza. Israel responded with massive air strikes, a blockade of the coastal area and began a ground offensive in late October.
Hamas: Release of hostages only after permanent ceasefire
According to one of its leaders, Saleh al-Aruri, Hamas will only release hostages once Israel ends its “aggression” and there is a permanent ceasefire. The only remaining hostages include men who served in the army and soldiers. Israeli Defense Minister Joav Galant, however, said there were still 15 women and two children among the hostages held by Hamas. Last week, Israel and Hamas released 105 hostages, including 14 Germans, and exchanged 240 Palestinian prisoners.
More foreigners and dual nationals are leaving Gaza
The departure of foreigners and Palestinians with second passports from the Gaza Strip continues. More than 600 of them – including Germans – were expected to cross the Rafah border crossing on Sunday and enter Egypt, according to a list from the border authority on the Palestinian side. Since the ceasefire ended on Friday, the border crossing has been opened to almost 900 foreigners and dual nationals, said the UN emergency relief office OCHA. In addition, 13 injured people left the Gaza Strip./jam/DP/zb