Israeli forces are at ‘the height of battle,’ Netanyahu says as commanders approach Hamas bases in Gaza

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last night that his forces were “at the height of battle” as they pushed deeper into the Hamas strongholds of Gaza City.

Senior Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) commanders said they had surrounded the terrorists as they closed in with tanks, bombers, helicopters, warships and ground troops.

But they faced fierce resistance from Hamas fighters who emerged from the “spider’s web” of tunnels beneath the enclave nicknamed the “Gaza Metro.”

“We have achieved impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City,” Netanyahu said. “We’re moving forward.”

He later told a group of troops, “I want to make one thing clear: nothing will stop us. We will move forward and win, and we will do so with God’s help and the help of our heroic soldiers.”

Smoke rises after Israeli attacks in the Tal Al Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, November 2

More than 9,000 Palestinians and at least 1,400 Israelis have been killed since October 7, according to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the Palestinian Health Authority.

People check buildings destroyed on November 2 during an Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip

The prime minister also said the government had not made any decision on transferring fuel to Gaza, despite desperate pleas from hospital heads there – even urging locals to donate a liter of fuel if they had it.

“We have not yet made a decision about transferring fuel. “I have not given any instructions and the War Cabinet has not approved any decision,” he told reporters.

Netanyahu’s comments came as Hamas and their Iran-backed allies in Lebanon, Hezbollah, fired their heaviest barrage of rockets since the start of the war at the northern Israeli border town of Kiryat Shmona, wounding two people.

The intensity of the fighting in Gaza was illustrated by the loss of Israel’s highest-ranking officer yet in the conflict, Lt. Col. Salman Habaka, the 18th soldier killed since the ground operation began.

Tank commander Colonel Habaka, 33 years old, a member of Israel’s Druze Arab minority, was deeply involved in the fight against Hamas’ murderous attack on October 7, which killed 1,400 people. He fought in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the deadliest sites for massacres, and killed dozens of terrorists that day.

Four other soldiers were also seriously injured during a battle yesterday.

Brigadier General Iddo Mizrahi, head of Israel’s military engineers, said troops were in the initial stages of opening access routes into Gaza but were confronted with mines and booby traps.

“Hamas has learned and prepared itself well,” he said.

Hamas and allied Islamic Jihad fighters emerged from tunnels to fire on tanks and then disappeared back into the network, residents said, and videos of both groups showed.

The Palestinian death toll from nearly four weeks of Israeli air and artillery strikes on the blockaded enclave rose above 9,000 on Thursday, Gaza health authorities said.

United Nations experts warned that the Palestinian people of Gaza were at “grave risk of genocide” as time was running out for them, and demanded an immediate ceasefire.

More than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war broke out, Hamas government health officials said.

More than 3,600 Palestinian children have reportedly been killed in 25 days of fighting, and bombing has driven more than half of the area’s 2.3 million people from their homes as food, water and fuel run out.

“We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide,” the group of experts, made up of seven U.N. special rapporteurs, said in a statement.

“We demand a humanitarian ceasefire to ensure aid reaches those who need it most.”

An Israeli artillery unit fires during a military exercise on the annexed Golan Heights near the border with Lebanon, November 2

People check buildings destroyed on November 2 during an Israeli attack on the Bureij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip

Israeli rescue crew inspects a house hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip near Lod, Israel on November 2, 2023

A victim injured in an Israeli bombing is carried on a stretcher at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on November 2

A Palestinian girl smiles on a hospital bed at Al Arish Hospital after arriving in Egypt from Gaza amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas on November 2

The Israeli mission to the UN in Geneva said it was preparing a response to the experts’ comments.

As international calls for a humanitarian pause in hostilities went unheeded, Palestinians are said to be facing shortages of food, fuel, drinking water and medicine.

“Water is being used as a weapon of war,” said Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA.