Israel said on Sunday that due to the ground attack on the Gaza Strip, it has divided the Palestinian territory into two parts and it is being attacked. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces “have surrounded Gaza City. There is now a southern Gaza and a northern Gaza.” He said this as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday embarked on a whirlwind tour of the occupied West Bank, Iraq and Cyprus to assist the beleaguered civilians in Gaza and stop attacks by Iran-backed groups on US troops in response to Israel’s Gaza war.
Blinken met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has condemned the “massacre” in Gaza, where the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said at least 9,770 people were killed in more than four weeks of war, mostly civilians. Were citizens.
According to Israeli officials, Washington rejected calls for a ceasefire and supported Israel’s goal of crushing Hamas. On October 7, Hamas launched the deadliest attack in Israeli history, killing more than 1,400 people. Most of them were civilians and more than 240 were taken hostage.
Global concern has increased over the increasing number of deaths in Gaza. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has once again vowed that “there will be no ceasefire until the hostages are returned.”
“Let them remove it from their dictionary. We are saying this to our enemies and to our friends,” Netanyahu said after meeting soldiers at the air force base.
“We will continue this until we win. We have no choice.”
In the footage released by the army on Sunday, soldiers were fighting from house to house as tanks and armored bulldozers waded through the sand.
“This attack is like an earthquake, with entire blocks turned into debris,” Gaza City resident Alaa Abu Hasera said in a devastated area.
A US State Department spokesperson said Blinken said in his conversation with Abbas that Palestinians in Gaza “should not be forcibly displaced”.