Israel said its infantry and tanks carried out ground raids inside the Gaza Strip on Friday. This is the first report of a shift from air war to ground operations to root out Hamas fighters a week after their attack on southern Israel.
Source. Reuters writes about it.
Some Gazans are fleeing their homes after Israel ordered more than a million people to leave the northern half of the Gaza Strip within 24 hours. Hamas, for its part, calls on them not to leave.
Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said that troops backed by tanks had carried out ground raids into Gaza to attack Palestinian rocket crews and obtain information on the whereabouts of hostages taken by Hamas.
Several thousand residents can be seen on the roads leading out of the northern part of the Gaza Strip, but many others said they would not leave their homes.
Hamas, which controls the densely populated Palestinian territory, has vowed to fight to the last drop of blood. The Israeli military said that a significant number of Gazans have begun to move south "to escape."
Mosques in Gaza are broadcasting messages: "Hold on to your homes. Hold on to your land".
"We are telling the people of northern Gaza and Gaza City to stay at home and in their places," Hamas Interior Ministry spokesman Eyad al-Bozom said at a press conference.
The UN said that Israel's call for Gazan civilians to leave could not be implemented "without devastating humanitarian consequences."
This drew a rebuke from Israel, which said the UN should condemn Hamas and support Israel's right to self-defense.
"The noose around the civilian population in Gaza is tightening. How are 1.1 million people supposed to move through a densely populated war zone in less than 24 hours?" – wrote Martin Griffiths, the head of the UN Relief and Works Division, on social media.
As a reminder, German Foreign Minister Annalena Burbock, who is on a visit to Israel, has placed much of the responsibility for the suffering of the civilian population of Gaza on Hamas.
"Hamas is now barricading itself behind innocent people and using them as a shield in Gaza," AFP quoted the German minister as saying. "Hamas has taken the entire population of Gaza hostage. Their tunnels, their weapons depots and their command centers are deliberately placed in residential buildings, supermarkets and universities. Perhaps even in hospitals," said Annalena Burbock.