Internet, telephone lines cut through Gaza while Israeli soil operations should degenerate
Israeli tanks were seen in two areas of Gaza City which are gateways to the city center, residents said on Thursday, while the Internet lines and telephone lines were cut through the Gaza Strip, a sign that ground operations were likely to degenerate imminently.
The Israeli forces control the eastern suburbs of the city of Gaza and in recent days have struck the regions of Cheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and Western areas where most of the population is reflected.
“The disconnection of Internet and telephone services is a bad omen. It has always been a bad signal, something very brutal will happen,” said Ismail, which has given only one name. He used an E-SIM to connect his phone, a dangerous method because it requires looking for higher land to receive a signal.
“The situation surrounding me is very desperate. People in tents and in houses are very worried about their lives. Many cannot afford to leave, but many do not want,” he said, speaking from a coastal area west of the city.
The main roads of the targeted network
At least 79 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli strikes or shots across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, most of them in Gaza City said the Ministry of Health in the early afternoon on Thursday.
The Palestinian telecommunications company said in a statement that its services had been cut “due to the current attack and the targeting of the main routes of the network”.
In his last statement to the media, he said that the troops widen their operations to Gaza City, dismantling what she called “terrorist infrastructure” and “eliminated terrorists” and continued to operate to Khan Younis and Rafah in the South.
Israel says he wants to break the Palestinian militant group Hamas in his bastions and release the last hostages that are still held in Gaza, but his last major offensive after two years of devastating war attracted international condemnation.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled the city of Gaza since Israel announced on August 10 that it intended to take control, but greater number remain in place, either in battered houses among the ruins, or in tapes of makeshift tents.
Bassam Al-Qanou, a displaced man who is refanting with around thirty family members in an improvised tents camp on the beach, said they had no way to go out, and nowhere to go.
“We are afraid, but what can we do?” He said, adding that children could not sleep because of fear and incessant boom of the sea, air and soil missile strikes.
The army has dropped leaflets urging residents to flee to a “humanitarian zone” designated in the south of the territory, but the conditions are disastrous, with food, drugs and insufficient space and an inadequate shelter.
Four other Palestinians, including a child, died of malnutrition and famine in the last 24 hours, said the Ministry of Health, increasing the deaths of such causes to at least 435 people, including 147 children, since the start of the war.
Israel says that the extent of hunger in Gaza has been exaggerated.
The government’s media office managed by Hamas said that a total of 3,542 people had been killed through the Gaza Strip between August 11, the day after the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced its intention to take control of the territory and Wednesday.
He said that 56% of them were killed in the city of Gaza and the northern part of the enclave, and 44% in the central and southern regions, which said demonstrated that Israel was trying to depopulate the North without sparing the South.
Tank seen in the neighborhoods
Along the coastal road, an uninterrupted column of all types of vehicles, carts and cars beaten with vans designed to transport goods, moved south, heavily loaded with mattresses, gas bottles and whole families perceive on their personal effects.
“We are heading to sleep in the streets towards the beach, like barefoot, we don’t know where to go,” said Yasser Saleh, speaking while he was on the edge of a ripping trailer pulled by a car.
In Sheikh Radwan, which is north of the city center and has been the subject of heavy bombing in recent days, the residents have said that they had seen tanks in the heart of their neighborhood.
They also said the Israeli forces had exploded four driver -free vehicles filled with explosives and that the explosions had destroyed many houses.
Thousands of Palestinians broadcast from Gaza City while Israel launched its offensive on the ground on Tuesday, but hundreds of thousands of people remain in the city which is already in ruins of almost two years of war. Several residents, some of whom had already fled south, but have returned since, explain the independent videographer of CBC News, Mohamed El Saife why they stay.
Similar explosions had shaken such al-Hawa, which is located southeast of the city center, and the residents also said they saw tanks in the streets.
Israel announced on Tuesday that it launched the main phase of its assault on the ground, but the bombing of several Gaza City zones had started the previous days.
Israel said on Wednesday that it opened an additional route outside the city for 48 hours, urging civilians to move south.
International assistance agencies indicate that more than 55,000 people fled northern Gaza between Sunday and Wednesday, but more than half a million have not left, according to Israeli estimates and Hamas.
The total number of Palestinian deaths of the two -year war between Israel and Hamas exceeded 65,000 on Wednesday, according to the Gaza health authorities. Palestinian officials and rescuers say that the real figure is probably higher because many remains are trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings.
The war was launched by the attacks led by Hamas against southern Israel on October 7, 2023, during which around 1,200 people were killed and 251 hostages, according to Israeli accounts.
A large part of the city of Gaza was owned at the start of the war, but around 1 million Palestinians returned to houses among the ruins due to the horrible conditions of the travel areas.
