“We are on the rise”
Israel: Gaza City surrounded, 130 Hamas fighters “eliminated”
November 2, 2023, 8:04 p.m
The Israeli army’s ground offensive reaches Gaza City. A military spokesman announced that the soldiers had surrounded the city and were in direct combat with Hamas terrorists. Airplanes and a rocket boat were also used again.
The Israeli army says it has surrounded the city of Gaza. “Our soldiers have completed the encirclement of the city of Gaza, the center of the terrorist organization Hamas,” said military spokesman Daniel Hagari in the evening. The soldiers would attack posts of the Islamist Hamas there and “eliminate” terrorists in direct fighting. 130 fighters were put out of action this Thursday alone. It was initially unclear whether they were killed. Gaza is the largest city in the sealed-off coastal strip. The encirclement came about a week after the start of Israeli ground operations in the Gaza Strip.
During their operations, the armed forces also destroyed Hamas military facilities and infrastructure as well as many weapons. Planes flanked the attacks and attacked military command and control centers of high-ranking Hamas members. The “terrorist infrastructure” was specifically located in civilian areas, it said. A Navy missile boat also hit Hamas buildings and observation posts with explosives. Israel’s air force and navy continued to attack targets of the Islamist organization’s navy.
Hamas has organized its infrastructure primarily in an extensive tunnel system that is particularly targeted by the Israeli military. According to eyewitnesses, fighters from Hamas and Islamic Jihad repeatedly emerged from tunnels to fire on Israeli troops. They then disappeared underground again, as can be seen in video footage from the two extremist groups. The information cannot be independently verified. According to experts, the extremists’ guerrilla tactics are the only means of countering the militarily far superior Israeli army.
Last weekend, the military ushered in a new phase in the war against Hamas. Israeli troops expanded their operations on the ground. The exact locations of the troops are not known. The Israeli army had repeatedly called on people still in the northern Gaza Strip and in the city of Gaza to flee to the south. “We are at the height of the battle,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had his office declare in the afternoon. “We have achieved impressive success and have reached beyond the outskirts of Gaza City. We are on the rise.”
Hamas launched a large-scale attack on Israel on October 7th, in which, according to Israeli figures, around 1,400 people were killed, mostly civilians. More than 240 people were also abducted by Hamas fighters. According to Hamas figures that cannot be independently verified, more than 9,000 people have been killed by Israel’s counterattacks in the Gaza Strip.