Israel enters Gaza City, floats occupation post-war
Ground forces push into Hamas stronghold, new stage in fighting
Israel said Tuesday its ground forces were battling Hamas fighters deep inside Gaza’s largest city, signaling a major new stage in the month-old conflict, and its leaders foresee controlling the enclave’s security after the war.
The push into Gaza City guarantees the already staggering death toll will rise further, while comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about controlling Gaza’s security for “an indefinite period” pointed to the uncertain endgame of a war Israel says will be long and difficult.
Israeli ground troops have battled Palestinian militants inside Gaza for over a week, cutting the territory in half and encircling Gaza City. The army’s chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israeli ground forces “are located right now in a ground operation in the depths of Gaza City and putting great pressure on Hamas.”
Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad, speaking Tuesday from Beirut, denied Israeli forces were making any significant military gains or that they had advanced deep into Gaza City.
Israelis commemorated the 30th day — a milestone in Jewish mourning — since the Hamas incursion, which killed 1,400 people. About 240 people Hamas abducted during the attack remain in Gaza, and more than 250,000 Israelis have evacuated homes near the borders of Gaza and Lebanon amid continuous rockets fired into Israel.
A month of relentless bombardment in Gaza has killed more than 10,300 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run territory. More than 2,300 are believed buried from strikes that reduced entire city blocks to rubble.
Israel has vowed to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities — but neither Israel nor its main ally, the United States, has said what would come next.
Netanyahu told ABC News on Tuesday Gaza should be governed by “those who don’t want to continue the way of Hamas,” without elaborating.
“I think Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility because we’ve seen what happens when we don’t have it. When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine,” he said.
Netanyahu did not make clear what shape that security control would take. The White House on Tuesday reiterated President Joe Biden does not support an Israeli reoccupation of the Gaza Strip after the war.
Israel withdrew troops and settlers in 2005 but kept control over Gaza’s airspace, coastline, population registry and border crossings, excepting one into Egypt. Hamas seized power from forces loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, confining his Palestinian Authority to parts of the occupied West Bank. Since then, Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza to varying degrees.
In his ABC interview, Netanyahu also expressed openness for the first time to “little pauses” in the fighting to facilitate delivery of aid to Gaza or the release of hostages. But he ruled out any general cease-fire without the release of all the hostages.
Israel unleashed another wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as hundreds more Palestinians fled Gaza City to the south.
Some arrived on donkey carts, most on foot, some pushing elderly relatives in wheelchairs, all visibly exhausted. Many had nothing but the clothes on their backs. “There is no food or drink, people are fighting in the bakeries,” said one man who didn’t want to give his name.
An Israeli airstrike destroyed several homes early Tuesday in Khan Younis. An Associated Press journalist at the scene saw first responders pulling five bodies — including three dead children — from the rubble. One man wept as he carried a bloodied young girl, until a rescue worker pried her from his arms, saying, “Let her go. Let her go,” to rush her to an ambulance.
At a school in Khan Younis, thousands of displaced were living in classrooms and the playground. One of them, Suhaila al-Najjar, said the last month had been filled with sleepless nights.
“What’s to come? How will we live? Bakeries have closed; there’s no gas. What will we eat?” she said.