Blackout in Gaza after Israel’s ‘most intense’ attack; Hamas vows ‘full force’
The Israeli military and Hamas fighters are at each other’s neck as the conflict between the two has intensified.
Israel’s air and ground forces widened their attacks on Hamas, whereas the Islamist group that administers the Gaza Strip vowed to confront the Israeli attacks with ‘full force’.
Meanwhile, Israel knocked out the internet and communictions in the beseiged enclave, cutting off nearly 2.3 million people from contacting each other as well as the outside world.
In the United Nations General Assembly, a resolution drafted by Arab states calling for an immediate humanitarian truce and allowing aid into Gaza gained strong support with 120 votes in favour followed by 14, including obvious adversaries Israel and the US, opposing the draft.
Hamas said it is ready to confront the Israeli attacks with ‘full force’ amid their stepped-up bombardments and ground raids on Friday night. “The Al-Qassam brigades and all the Palestinian resistance forces are completely ready to confront (Israel’s) aggression with full force and frustrate its incursions,” Hamas said in a statement.
Israeli military has signalled that it was moving closer to an all-out invasion of the Palestinian enclave ‘in a very significant way’. “In addition to the attacks carried out in the last few days, ground forces are expanding their operations tonight,” Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a televised news briefing on Friday evening.
The largest telecommunications provider in Gaza, Paltel, said the enclave is ‘currently blacked out’ as Palestinians were thrown into complete isolation after Israel severed internet and communications access for the civilians there, who are already huddling in homes and shelters with food and water supplies running out.
Hamas said it fired ‘salvos’ of rockets at Israel after a series of bombardments it was attacked with inside the Palestinian territory. “Salvos of rockets in the direction of the occupied territories (Israel) in answer to the massacre of civilians,” Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said on its Telegram channel.
Israel accused Hamas of abusing hospitals in Gaza for military gains. Hagari said, “Hamas wages war from hospitals,” adding that it was also using fuel stored in these hospitals to carry out operations. Hamas immediately denied the allegations.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu shared a clip on X (formerly Twitter) showing how Hamas is using Al-Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, for military pupose. “Hamas-ISIS is sick. They turn hospitals into headquarters for their terror. We just released intelligence proving it,” he wrote.
“There’s no basis in truth in what the spokesman of the enemy army stated,” member of Hamas politbureau Izzat al-Rishq said denying the allegations. He further accused Israel of ‘paving the way for a new massacre to be committed against our people’ by making up the allegations.
India is among 45 countries abstained in the UN General Assembly on the resolution that called for an immediate humanitarian truce in the Israel-Hamas conflict leading to a cessation of hostilities. It also called for unhindered humanitarian access in the Gaza strip.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, death toll in the territory soared 7,300, in which over 60% of them are minors and women.
Israel’s neighbour Jordan said the ‘outcome will be a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions for years to come’. Meanwhile, Saudi Prince and former intelligence chief of Saudi Arabia Turki al-Faisal referred to India’s pre-independence civil disobedience movement to recommend as a ‘preferred’ option amid Israel-Hamas war.
“All military occupied people have a right to resist their occupation, even militarily. I do not support the military option in Palestine…I prefer the other option: Civil Insurrection and Disobedience. It brought down the British Empire in India and the Soviet Empire in Eastern Europe,” he said.