New Delhi: News reports on Monday (October 30) claimed that Israeli forces have blocked a key north-to-south road just outside Gaza City in northern Gaza.
The development comes as Israel expands its ground operations into the beleaguered coastal strip.
It has asked residents of the northern half of the territory to evacuate to the south but stopped short of describing its operation there as an all-out invasion.
More than 8,000 Palestinians and 1,400 Israelis have died during the ongoing armed conflict between Israel’s military and Hamas, a socio-political and military organisation that rules the Gaza Strip.
It began after Hamas breached the Gaza-Israel border on October 7, carrying out a series of attacks on Israel and taking over 200 hostages.
Hamas wants a five-day pause to Israel’s military operations in the strip in return for releasing the civilians among these hostages, Reuters cited a source as saying, adding that the two sides were still participating in Qatar-mediated negotiations on Sunday.
A spokesperson for Israel’s armed forces said on Monday that they had struck more than 600 Hamas targets in the last 24 hours.
Civilians made up the bulk of deaths on both sides.
Non-profit organisation Save the Children said that as of Sunday, 40% of those killed in Gaza were children and that 1,000 other children were reported missing, assumed to be buried under rubble.
“The number of children reported killed in Gaza in just three weeks has surpassed the annual number of children killed across the world’s conflict zones since 2019,” a press note released by Save the Children said.
Israel has also imposed a blockade on the supply of food, fuel, electricity, medical supplies and water, with only a limited amount of food and medical aid reaching Gaza through the Rafah crossing on the strip’s border with Egypt.
Thirty-three trucks carrying water, food and medicine entered Gaza through Rafah on Sunday, the Associated Press reported, adding that although Israeli authorities said more aid will soon be allowed, they did not elaborate.
Gazans also experienced a communications blackout starting Friday (October 27) amid heavy Israeli bombardment.
They appeared to ease on Sunday but airstrikes in northern Gaza again resulted in disruptions, a report in The Guardian said.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Sunday that it received “serious threats” from Israeli forces to “immediately evacuate” the al-Quds hospital in view of an imminent bombing, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Reuters, around 14,000 people have sought shelter in the al-Quds hospital.
The hospital’s staff have warned that moving the patients there – many of whom are in intensive care – is impossible.
The BBC on Monday quoted local residents as saying that bombardment in the vicinity of the hospital had begun.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Sunday that the situation in Gaza is becoming more and more desperate “by the hour”.
“The situation in Gaza is growing more desperate by the hour. I regret that instead of a critically needed humanitarian pause, supported by the international community, Israel has intensified its military operations,” he said while in Kathmandu, Nepal.
India on Saturday (October 28) abstained on a resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly calling for a humanitarian truce, choosing not to back the international community’s demand that there be an immediate halt to the violence.
