Israeli forces, backed by jets, advanced farther into Gaza on Friday as the army prepared for a ground offensive against Hamas in the worst attack in the country’s history.
As the battle entered its 21st day, Israel’s relentless bombardment on the Gaza Strip continued, with European officials urging for “humanitarian pauses” to allow in desperately needed aid.
According to Israeli sources, Israel has been bombarding Palestinian land since Hamas fighters burst across the border on October 7, murdering 1,400 people, largely civilians, and capturing more than 220 others.
So far, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry reports that the strikes have killed over 7,000 people, largely civilians and many of them children, fueling calls for the protection of innocent civilians caught up in the fight.
With tens of thousands of Israeli troops massed along the Gaza border in preparation for a widely anticipated combat offensive, the army announced a quick ground incursion into central Gaza.
“During the last day, IDF ground forces, accompanied by IDF fighter jets and UAVs, conducted an additional targeted raid in the central Gaza Strip,” it said in the second such operation in as many days.
The military published black-and-white film of a column of armored vehicles as a heavy cloud of dust billowed into the sky following the strikes.
The previous night, tanks and troops carried out a similar attack in northern Gaza against the Islamist Hamas, according to the IDF.
Concerns about the fate of the 2.4 million Palestinians trapped under the relentless bombardment grew late Thursday, when European Union leaders called for “continued, rapid, safe, and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures, including humanitarian corridors and humanitarian pauses.”