Israel said on Tuesday its forces were operating deep in Gaza City in their battle to wipe out Hamas in...
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Smoke rises following Israeli strikes, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in Gaza City, Nov. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Al-Masri
Israel said on Tuesday its forces were operating deep in Gaza City in their battle to wipe out Hamas in the Palestinian enclave, and that the Islamist terrorist group’s leader was trapped inside a bunker.
Gaza residents said earlier that Israeli tanks were positioned on the outskirts of Gaza City, Hamas’ stronghold in the north of the territory and home to about a third of its 2.3 million people before the hostilities.
Israel previously said it had surrounded Gaza City and would soon attack it to annihilate Hamas fighters who assaulted Israeli towns across the border one month ago.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israeli soldiers were operating in the heart of Gaza City. Hamas’ most senior leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was isolated in his bunker, Gallant said in a televised news conference.
“IDF [Israeli military] forces … came from the north and the south. They stormed it in full coordination between land, air, and sea forces,” Gallant said.
“They are maneuvering on foot, armored vehicles and tanks, along with military engineers from all directions and they have one target — Hamas terrorists in Gaza, their infrastructure, their commanders, bunkers, communications rooms. They are tightening the noose around Gaza City.”
He said that below the city there were miles of tunnels that ran under schools and hospitals and that housed weapons depots, communication rooms, and hideouts for terrorists.
“Gaza City is encircled, we are operating inside it,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised statement. “We are increasing pressure on Hamas every hour, every day. So far, we have killed thousands of terrorists, above ground and below ground.”
The Israeli military said Hamas terrorists fired anti-tank missiles at Israeli forces from nearby hospitals and that soldiers found weapons hidden in a school in northern Gaza.
The military wing of Hamas, which has ruled the Palestinian enclave for 16 years, said its fighters were inflicting heavy losses and damage on advancing Israeli forces. It had no immediate comment on the possible fate of Sinwar.
It was not possible to verify the battlefield claims of either side.
The war broke out on Oct. 7 when Hamas fighters burst across the fence enclosing Gaza and killed 1,400 Israelis, mostly civilians, and abducted more than 200, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel has bombarded the coastal territory, killing more than 10,000 people, according to counts by Hamas-controlled health officials there. Casualty counts from Gaza are notoriously unreliable, and it’s unclear how many of the dead are terrorists.
Both Israel and Hamas have rebuffed calls for a halt in fighting. Israel says hostages should be freed first. Hamas says it will not free them or stop fighting while Gaza is under attack. Washington has backed Israel‘s position that a ceasefire would help Hamas militarily.
Israel has so far been vague about its long-term plans for Gaza, should it succeed in its operation to vanquish Hamas. In some of the first direct comments on the subject, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would seek to have security responsibility for Gaza “for an indefinite period.”
“We’ve seen what happens when we don’t have that security responsibility,” he told US television’s ABC News.
Israel pulled its troops and settlers from the Gaza Strip in 2005, and two years later, Hamas took power there, driving out the Palestinian Authority which exercises limited self-rule in a separate territory, the West Bank.
Simcha Rothman, a lawmaker in Netanyahu’s religious-nationalist coalition, said in a social media post: “Our forces must not shed blood to give the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian Authority wrapped in a bow … Only full Israeli control and a complete demilitarization of the strip will restore security.”
But White House spokesman John Kirby said US President Joe Biden opposed Israeli reoccupation: “It’s not good for Israel, it’s not good for the Israeli people,” Kirby told CNN.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken with leaders in the region about what governance of Gaza could look like after the war, Kirby said: “Whatever it is, it can’t be what it was on Oct. 6. It can’t be Hamas.”
Diplomatic discussions about how Gaza could be ruled after the war have considered the deployment of a multinational force, an interim Palestinian-led administration excluding Hamas, a stopgap security and governance role for neighboring Arab states, and temporary UN supervision of the enclave, according to a source familiar with the matter.
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