Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Israeli troops launched a new phase of ground operations against the Hamas group in Gaza today, Sunday (29/10/2023). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this was the second phase of a three-week war aimed at destroying militant groups in Palestine.
The besieged residents of Gaza are now almost completely unable to access communications and the internet, due to merciless bombardment from Israeli planes and battle tanks.
Israeli military chiefs signaled they were preparing for an expanded ground offensive.
Netanyahu warned Israel would face a “long and difficult” war, but stopped short of calling the current offensive an invasion of Palestine.
Joe Biden’s administration has advised Israel to immediately postpone an all-out attack, but Netanyahu has refused.
Netanyahu vowed to make every effort to free more than 200 hostages, including Americans and other foreigners, held by Hamas.
“This is the second phase of the war whose objectives are clear: to destroy the government and military capabilities of Hamas and to repatriate the hostages,” Netanyahu said, quoted from Reuters.
“We are only in the early stages,” he said. “We will destroy the enemy above and below ground.”
Israel has tightened its blockade and bombed Gaza for three weeks since the Islamist group Hamas’ devastating attack on October 7. At least 1,400 Israelis were killed in the deadliest day in the country’s 75-year history, Israeli authorities said.
Western countries generally support Israel’s self-defense attacks. But there has been growing international condemnation of the death toll from the bombing and increasing calls for a “humanitarian pause” to allow aid to reach Gaza civilians and ease the humanitarian crisis.
Medical authorities in the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.3 million people, say 7,650 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s campaign to eliminate Hamas militants.
President Mahmoud Abbas said, “Our people in the Gaza Strip are facing a war of genocide and massacres carried out by the Israeli occupation forces in front of the whole world.”
With many buildings reduced to rubble and difficulty finding shelter, Gazans are running out of food, water, fuel and medicine. Their suffering worsened from Friday evening when telephone and internet services were cut, followed by heavy bombing throughout the night.
The communications blackout continued until Sunday.
“God help anyone under the rubble,” said one Gaza journalist, who spent a harrowing night on the steps of the building as bombs fell and Israeli troops appeared to exchange fire with Palestinian fighters.
Israel’s chief military spokesman declined to say whether Israel was behind the telecommunications blackout in Gaza, but said it would do what was necessary to protect its troops.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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