The Israeli aggression on Gaza entered its 24th day, with no signs of a ceasefire. The Palestinian resistance, led by Hamas, released a video of Israeli soldiers captured in Gaza, urging Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate their release.
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes and shelling killed and injured more civilians in Gaza. The Ministry of Health in Gaza reported that the death toll of the aggression reached 8,306, including 3,457 children and 2,136 women, and more than 21,000 wounded.
Netanyahu dismissed the video as “harsh psychological propaganda from Hamas.” He said he would do “everything possible to bring back all the captives and missing persons.”
The Israeli army launched a ground invasion of Gaza on Sunday, advancing into the Rakhawah area in the southeast of Gaza. However, the Palestinian resistance fighters confronted them and forced them to retreat, according to the government media office in Gaza.
The British newspaper, the Financial Times, said that the Israeli invasion showed a limited ambition to weaken Hamas rather than overthrow it. It also said that the Israeli army was silent about the invasion to avoid provoking Hezbollah and Iran.
The Palestinian resistance intensified its rocket and mortar attacks on the Israeli forces near the Al-Amriyya area and the Erez crossing in the northern Gaza Strip. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said they targeted the Erez site with mortar shells to prevent reinforcements from reaching the burning vehicles that were hit by their missiles.
The Al-Qassam Brigades also fired rockets at the Israeli cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod and the settlements near Gaza. They claimed that they carried out a landing operation behind the enemy lines on Sunday.
The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, said that they ambushed an Israeli armored force east of the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood, killing and wounding several soldiers.
On the international level, South Africa called on the United Nations to deploy a rapid force to protect civilians in Gaza from the Israeli bombardment. “Entire generations of families have been wiped out in Gaza over the past three weeks,” the South African Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“The numbers of non-combatants killed, especially the numbers of children killed, require the world to show that it is serious about global accountability,” the statement added.
In addition, Israel’s Channel 13 reported that about 50 aid trucks would enter Gaza from Egypt today as part of an increase in humanitarian aid.
In the Arab world, Oman cancelled a previous agreement that allowed Israeli planes to fly over its airspace. Egypt’s Al-Azhar, the highest religious authority in Sunni Islam, urged Arab and Islamic countries to support the Palestinians against Israel’s aggression. Al-Azhar said in a statement that it called on Arab and Islamic governments to use their potential, wealth, and power to help Gaza.
Meanwhile, in the West Bank, the Israeli occupation forces stormed the city of Jenin and its camp again at dawn on Monday, sparking violent clashes with the resistance fighters. The raid resulted in the death of four Palestinians, while the Jenin Brigade – affiliated with the Jerusalem Brigades – confirmed that it inflicted casualties on the Israeli side during the operation.
The Israeli army spokesperson said that the number of prisoners held by the Palestinian resistance in the Gaza Strip had increased to 239, including foreigners. The spokesperson urged residents of the northern Gaza Strip to move south temporarily, and threatened to target Hamas leader Yahya Al-Sinwar, saying: “We will pursue him until we get him.”
In the meantime, the Palestinian Minister of Health Mai Al-Kaila said that the Israeli occupation army endangered hospitals and patients when it invaded Palestinian cities in the West Bank. Al-Kaila stated that the occupation fired near and around hospitals when it entered cities, which posed a threat to the lives of patients inside them and spread fear among them.
The director of Jenin Governmental Hospital said that the occupation hindered the work of medical staff during the invasion of the city of Jenin and its camp. He explained that the occupation army surrounded the hospital area, preventing the arrival of ambulances, which hampered the work of the crews, noting that a state of panic prevailed among the patients during the military operation.
Nevertheless, Palestinian media reported that a heavy Israeli bombardment targeted the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The hospital shelters tens of thousands of displaced people in light of the lack of safe areas in the Strip as a result of the brutal raids that have continued for 24 days. Israel accuses Hamas of using the hospital as a headquarters for its leadership.
Moreover, the Anadolu Agency quoted the director of the Turkish Friendship Hospital in the Gaza Strip as saying that the occupation warplanes bombed the third and last floor of the main building of the hospital, causing severe damage to it.
On 17 October, Israel committed a massacre at Baptist Hospital when it attacked it, killing more than 470 Palestinians, most of whom sought refuge in the hospital for fear of random bombing, or after their homes were destroyed.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health recently announced also that 12 hospitals and 32 primary care centres were out of service in Gaza, as a result of direct Israeli targeting, or their inability to continue work due to running out of fuel.
In another context, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club also announced that the Israeli occupation forces arrested 85 Palestinian civilians from different areas in the West Bank during the past hours.
The club indicated, in a statement, that the occupation forces continued to launch arrest campaigns in the West Bank since the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the Israeli aggression on Gaza, and that about 1,680 Palestinian civilians had been arrested so far.
It also explained that among the detainees were members of the Palestinian Parliament from Hamas, in addition to Nasser Al-Din Al-Shaer, who served as deputy prime minister in Hamas’ first government after its victory in the 2006 elections.
