Netanyahu called Israel’s unique goal in the ground operation against Hamas

Gaza plunged into darkness, isolation and violence on Saturday night, its communications with the outside world almost completely cut off as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced his country was entering the “second phase” of its long and difficult war against Hamas. .

In a televised news conference, Netanyahu told the Israelis: “We unanimously approved the expansion of the ground invasion… Our goal is unique: to defeat a bloodthirsty enemy. We declared “never again” and we repeat “never again” now.

Describing the expanding war as “Israel’s second war of independence,” Netanyahu continued: “In the first weeks of the war, we launched massive airstrikes that dealt a serious blow to the enemy. We have eliminated many terrorists. However, we are only at the beginning of the journey. The battle in the Gaza Strip will be difficult and long; This is our second war of independence.”

As the 2.3 million Palestinians in the blockaded coastal strip braced for a second night of dramatic escalation in Israeli military operations, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the campaign against the Islamist militant group Hamas would continue until new orders were given.

After the heaviest airstrikes of the war, which saw up to 100 Israeli planes strike dozens of targets overnight Friday, Israeli armor and infantry entered Gaza under cover of darkness and continued to fight in the enclave, The Observer writes.

Netanyahu’s comments came on the heels of comments from Gallant and IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi that signaled the war had entered a new phase. Halevi, head of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), announced that the objectives of the war against Hamas required a ground operation inside the coastal strip. “The IDF ground forces are conducting a significant and complex operation,” he said. – There are no achievements without risk, and, as we know, there is no victory without sacrifice. To expose the enemy, to destroy him, there is no other choice but to invade his territory by force. This operation serves all the purposes of the war.”

With mobile networks, the internet and electricity in Gaza almost completely cut off, emergency services, including paramedics, were operating virtually blind as they tried to respond to dozens of deaths and injuries from the airstrikes.

Some civilians used their bare hands to pull the wounded out of the rubble, loading them into cars or donkey carts and taking them to the hospital.

One video published by local media showed Palestinians running with a wounded man covered in dust from a collapsed building as he writhes with his eyes closed on a stretcher. “Ambulance! Ambulance!” – the men shouted, pushing the stretcher into the back of a pickup truck and shouting to the driver: “Let’s go! Leave!”

Israel launched its offensive on Gaza after hundreds of Hamas militants crossed the Israeli border by vehicle, air and sea on October 7, indiscriminately killing civilians on the streets, in their homes and at street parties, The Observer recalls.

Lynn Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, posted on social media: “Hospitals and humanitarian operations cannot continue without communications,” despite Elon Musk offering to supply internationally recognized agencies in Gaza with his Starlink satellite system. Amid growing global concern over the civilian death toll, the Israel Defense Forces said its planes struck 150 underground Hamas targets in Gaza on Friday night, while Palestinian residents reported clashes with Israeli armored vehicles and infantry at three locations inside the Strip Gaza.

As rocket attacks continued on Israel from the Gaza Strip, there were also exchanges of fire on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon on Saturday after anti-tank guided missiles and mortars were fired at towns and Israeli military positions. The latest strikes came after the IDF repeated its call for northern Gazans to move south of Wadi Gaza in airdropped leaflets.

Due to the communications blackout, several reports from Gaza described scenes of overcrowded hospitals and morgues on the verge of collapse and terrified civilians unsure where to flee.

In a statement calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, the World Health Organization (WHO) said it had lost contact with its staff and described horrific scenes in hospitals.

The statement said: “During a night of intense bombing and ground incursions into Gaza, with reports of ongoing fighting, health workers, patients and civilians suffered a complete blackout of communications and electricity. Reports of bombings near hospitals in Indonesia and Al Shifa are of grave concern. WHO reiterates that it is not possible to evacuate patients without putting their lives at risk. Hospitals across Gaza are already stretched to their limits due to injuries sustained during weeks of relentless bombing, unable to accommodate the surge in patients while providing shelter to thousands of civilians. Health care workers who have remained close to their patients are faced with dwindling supplies, no place to admit new patients, and no means to relieve their patients’ pain. Every hour there are more and more wounded. But ambulances cannot reach them due to a communications blackout. The morgues are full. More than half of the dead are women and children.”

The WHO statement echoes a warning from UN human rights chief Volker Türk of the “possible catastrophic consequences” of large-scale ground operations in the Gaza Strip, which would lead to thousands more deaths.

“There are a large number of martyrs and survivors under the rubble, and we cannot reach them,” says a Gaza civil defense official.

“The stench of death can be felt everywhere – in every neighborhood, on every street and in every house,” respiratory doctor Raed al-Astal told AFP from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.

The Hamas-led Palestinian Health Ministry said some 7,700 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, following a Hamas massacre of some 1,400 Israelis living along the Gaza border. The figures stated by Hamas cannot be verified.

On Saturday, the Israeli military released grainy images showing tank columns moving slowly through open areas of Gaza, many of which appeared to be close to the border. “The forces are still on the ground and continuing the war,” army spokesman R. Adm. Daniel Hagari said.

According to Gazan residents, the heaviest fighting appears to have occurred in the northern Gaza Strip around Beit Lahia and Beit Hanoun, while fighting was also reported east of Bureij in central Gaza and east of Han -Yunisa – approach routes of Israeli invasions in the past.

Witnesses said the bombing was concentrated in the Jabaliya neighborhood of northern Gaza, leaving craters in the streets and leveling many buildings.

The strikes on Gaza’s extensive Hamas tunnel system, known to Israeli military planners as the “subway,” followed an account by freed hostage Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, that she was taken deep into the tunnels with other hostages during her captivity.