With the Israel-Hamas war a day away from marking a month since it began, Israel’s military announced late Sunday that it had encircled Gaza City and divided it into two. The besieged strip came under the third total communications outage since the start of the war. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, meanwhile, met with the Palestinian President, followed by a surprise visit to Iraq.
The Hamas-run health ministry said at least 9,770 people had been killed in more than four weeks of war in Gaza. The operation started after the militants killed more than 1,400 people and took over 240 hostages in the deadliest attack in Israel's history.
Gaza came under "unprecedented bombardment" from Israel on Sunday, as Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the Gaza City is now divided into two parts. "Today there is north Gaza and south Gaza”, he said, calling it a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against Hamas. Israeli media said that Israeli troops were expected to enter Gaza City within 48 hours, while strong explosions were reported in northern Gaza after nightfall.
All communications and internet services were shut down in Gaza on Sunday for the third time since the war began. The “collapse in connectivity” was reported by internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmed by Palestinian telecom company Paltel. The first communication outage in Gaza had lasted 36 hours and the second one for a few hours.
Israel yet again dismissed the escalating international calls for a ceasefire, as it stated that its forces had successfully surrounded Gaza City. The development came even as Blinken is making efforts to manage the crisis that poses a risk of further escalation in the adjacent country of Lebanon.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his diplomatic efforts amid the ongoing war, went to the occupied West Bank on Sunday. He met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and tried to assure him that the Biden administration was intensifying efforts to ease the plight of Gaza’s civilians. He also asserted the stance that Palestinians must have a main say in whatever comes next for their territory after the conflict.
Blinken later flew to Baghdad for talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, amid the rising concerns about American forces in the region facing a surge of attacks by Iranian-allied militias in Iraq and elsewhere. Blinken further traveled to Turkey from Baghdad.
Earlier on Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck two refugee camps, killing at least 53 people and wounding dozens in central Gaza. This is the zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians to seek refuge. Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush Hamas, despite US appeals for even brief pauses to get aid to desperate civilians.
After an Israeli strike on a car in south Lebanon killed three children and their grandmother on Sunday, Hezbollah said it would never tolerate attacks on civilians and its response would be "firm and strong". "The enemy will pay the price for its crimes against civilians," Hezbollah lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah told Reuters. Hezbollah said it responded to the Israeli strike, in which three girls aged between 10 and 14 were killed in an attack it launched.
The Israeli military carried out expansive airstrikes in Gaza on Sunday evening and ground troops completed their encirclement of Gaza City, slicing the enclave in two as telecommunication services to the Strip appeared to be cut again.
Israel Defense Forces Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said during an evening press conference that the military was carrying out “widespread strikes on terror infrastructure, below ground and above it.”
An official with the Hamas terror group, which rules Gaza, said that “for more than an hour, intense bombings have been taking place around hospitals.”
The vicinity of the enclave’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, saw particularly heavy strikes, according to Salama Marouf, the head of the Hamas government’s media office. The hospital, Israel says, hosts the terror group’s main base of operations.
The Hamas claims could not be independently verified.
Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has backtracked from a statement wherein he had highlighted a need to examine whether months of protests against his government had added to Hamas' motivation to carry out the October 7 attack that triggered the war.
Taking to X on Sunday, he said Hamas started a war "because it wants to kill us all and not because of any argument within us."
Jordan's air force personnel air-dropped urgent medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza early on Monday, according to a social media posts by Jordan's king and state media.
"A royal air force plane dropped urgent medical aid using parachutes to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza whose supplies were about to run out due to the delay of delivering aid through Rafah crossing", Jordan's state news agency said citing a military source in the General Command of the Jordanian Armed Forces.
Earlier on Saturday, External Affairs Minister Dr S Jaishankar described the situation as "very complex", and conveyed to his Israeli counterpart Eli Cohen India's firm commitment to countering terrorism, observance of international humanitarian law and for a two-state solution to the Palestinian issue.
After a phone conversation with Jaishankar, Cohen, in a post on X, thanked New Delhi for its "support of Israel and of its war against the Hamas terrorist organization, adding "our war is the entire democratic world's war against a despicable terrorist organization" that is worse than ISIS.
On his part, Jaishankar said: "Appreciated his sharing the Israeli assessment of the current situation.Reiterated our firm commitment to countering terrorism, observance of international humanitarian law and for a two state solution." India had described Hamas's multi-pronged attack on Israeli cities on October 7 as terror strikes but at the same time called for strict observance of the international humanitarian law following concerns over civilian casualties in Gaza in view of Israel's counter-offensive.
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