Israel says it has split the Gaza Strip in two in an attempt to isolate Hamas’s leadership
The Israeli army said its forces had split the Gaza Strip in two after a night of heavy airstrikes, a move Israel said would make it harder for Hamas to control the enclave.
Israeli officials made the announcement after two Israeli columns surrounded Gaza City, which is densely populated and located in the northern half of the Gaza Strip, effectively cutting it off from the south. Israeli officials have described the city as a Hamas stronghold.
“In essence, today there is a northern Gaza and a southern Gaza,” Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman, said in a briefing late Sunday evening. Despite this claim, Israeli leaders have not discussed dividing Gaza or maintaining control of the area that the armed forces vacated in 2005.
The extent of the fighting was unclear due to a communications blackout in Gaza, the third since the war began almost a month ago.
Israel said it had hit 450 targets in Gaza overnight, and Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, said Monday that Israeli infantry units were engaged in “close-quarters urban warfare.” Admiral Hagari said Sunday evening that Israeli forces “carried out a major attack on terrorist infrastructure, both above and below ground.”
Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, reported “violent explosions and an unprecedented bombardment by Israeli aircraft and warships,” saying the attacks targeted the area around several hospitals and had killed and injured dozens of people.
While Israel says it has targeted Hamas and its network of tunnels and command posts, weeks of pounding airstrikes and shelling have left entire neighborhoods in ruins and led to a rising number of civilian casualties.
More than 10,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Israeli bombardment began almost a month ago, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A Pentagon spokesperson, Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said Monday that the United States estimates civilian casualties are “in the thousands,” but said he did not have a more precise estimate.
Addressing concerns that the war could spiral into a broader regional conflict, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken visited Turkey on Monday on the final stop of a short tour of the Middle East, visiting Tel Aviv, the Western Jordan Bank and Baghdad were discussed.
Mr Blinken said the Biden administration’s efforts to increase the flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and prevent Iran and its allies from expanding the conflict are making progress.
“We are working, as I said, very aggressively to get more humanitarian assistance into Gaza,” Mr. Blinken told reporters in Ankara, where he met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan before heading to Tokyo left. “I think you’ll see in the coming days that that assistance can be significantly expanded.”
Jordan’s King Abdullah II said on Monday that his country’s air force had airlifted “urgent medical aid” to the kingdom’s field hospital in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military confirmed the unusual move, saying in a statement that it was a coordinated effort by neighboring countries.
Mr. Blinken also said that, with help from Turkey and other countries, progress has been made in preventing the conflict from turning into a broader war.
The United States is primarily focused on deterring Iran from joining the conflict. The U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. forces in the region, announced Sunday that it has sent a nuclear-powered attack submarine to the region, adding to the U.S. military presence in the Middle East.
“Sometimes the absence of something bad may not be the most obvious sign of progress, but it is,” Mr. Blinken said.
Mr Blinken has had less success in persuading Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to agree to “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting, which the Biden administration believes could ease the flow of aid and make it easier for foreigners to leave Gaza.
During a meeting with Mr Blinken in Tel Aviv on Friday, Mr Netanyahu dismissed the idea of ”humanitarian pauses”, insisting that Hamas first release the more than 200 hostages he and other groups have held since October 7, when Hamas Gunmen killed more than 1,400 people in Israel.
On Monday, several hundred people, including the families of some hostages, protested outside Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, chanting “now” in Hebrew and demanding more be done to secure their release.
“Even if we achieve our military goals,” a family member, Inbar Goldstein, told the crowd, “there can be no progress or reconstruction without them all back.” Ms. Goldstein’s brother and his young daughter were killed in the Oct. 7 attack, and her brother’s wife and their three other children were taken hostage.
For many Palestinians with relatives in Gaza, the fear and anxiety of the war have been exacerbated by communications disruptions, such as the one that cut off phone and internet services starting Sunday evening.
Many have spent the past few weeks relentlessly scrolling news sites, constantly monitoring TV and social media, and frantically texting their relatives in the area whenever they see reports of an explosion near them. When Gaza loses internet and phone services, the fear only increases.
“I’m calling non-stop but not once gets through,” Shahd Abusalama, who lives in London and whose parents live in Gaza, wrote in a text message on Monday. “We fight our darkest thoughts.”
Rafaat Arafat, 28, a PhD student from Gaza in India, said he slept only about an hour a day and had completely lost his appetite because of fear for the fate of his family.
When he heard that his family’s home in Gaza had been destroyed, he was unable to reach his relatives to check if they had been inside. And when he heard that some family members had been killed, he couldn’t immediately reach anyone to confirm whether it was a distant relative or his parents.
“I cried for about two hours,” he said, adding that he searched Google for “murder of the Arafat family” but found nothing. He was last able to reach his mother two days ago.
“So many times I tried to call them,” he said. “They didn’t answer.”
Reporting was contributed by Hiba Yazbek, Rana F. Sweis, Matthew Rosenberg, Emma Bubola, Anushka Patil, Alan Yuhas, Talya Minsberg And Ronen Bergman.