Israeli air strikes have destroyed hundreds of buildings in the Gaza Strip overnight, the civil defence service in the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory said.
“Hundreds of buildings and houses were completely destroyed and thousands of other homes were damaged,” said Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the Gaza Civil Defence.
The intense bombardments had “changed the landscape” of northern Gaza, he told AFP. Witnesses said most of the bombing was concentrated on areas around two hospitals including Al-Shifa and the Indonesian hospital located in Jabaliya district of northern Gaza. The strikes left wide craters in the streets and flattened many buildings in the area.
The health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Saturday that at least 7,703 people have been killed in the war with Israel that erupted on October 7. More than 3,500 children were among the dead, the ministry added.
Meanwhile, battles raged in Gaza on Saturday as Israel’s army said it expanded ground operations after intensifying its bombardment of the besieged Palestinian enclave three weeks after the Hamas carried out a raid in Israel.
“We are confronting an Israeli ground incursion in Beit Hanoun (in the northern Gaza Strip) and east Bureij (in the centre) and violent engagements are taking place on the ground,” Hamas’s armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said.
Israeli military spokesman Major Nir Dinar told AFP: “Our troops are operating inside Gaza as they did yesterday.” “The ground forces are extending the ground operations tonight,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said late Friday.
The Israeli army said it had increased its strikes “in a very significant way”, while the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram it responded with “salvos of rockets”.
In overnight raids, Israeli fighter jets hit 150 “terror tunnels, underground combat spaces and additional underground infrastructure” and “several Hamas terrorists were killed”, the army claimed on Saturday morning.
“If (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu decides to enter Gaza tonight, the resistance is ready,” Ezzat al-Rishaq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, said on Telegram on Friday. “The remains of his soldiers will be swallowed up by the land of Gaza.”
Hamas said all internet connections and communications across Gaza had been cut, and accused Israel of taking the measure “to perpetrate massacres with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea”.
Human Rights Watch also warned the near-total telecommunications blackout in Gaza risks providing cover for “mass atrocities”. The Palestinian Red Crescent said the communications outage had “Netanyahu and his defeated army will not be able to achieve any military victory,” Hamas said in a statement early on Saturday, referring to the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli ground forces had massed outside Gaza, where Israel has been conducting an intense campaign of aerial bombardment since the Oct. 7 attack.
