Intense Israeli strikes rocked the northern Gaza Strip on Friday evening. (File)
New Delhi:
Israel launched massive strikes across northern Gaza tonight, which reports said were the most intense since the start of the war on October 7. Hamas said internet has been snapped in the Gaza Strip. Reports said contact with Gaza is lost.
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The Israeli military told news agency AFP it is “continuously striking in the Gaza Strip” against the Hamas group that rules the Palestinian territory.
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Hamas accused Israel of cutting off internet and most communications “to perpetrate massacres with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea,” as heavy strikes hit northern Gaza.
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Rocket warning sirens blared in several cities in Israel while the airstrikes in northern Gaza were going on. Central Tel Aviv was targetted in the rocket attacks today.
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Hamas said it launched several rockets on Israel today. They had fired nearly 5,000 rockets on the October 7 terror attack that killed over 1,300 people in Israel.
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The UN chief warned today that Gaza faces “an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering” due to lack of food, water and power. “I repeat my call for a humanitarian ceasefire, the unconditional release of all hostages, and the delivery of life-saving supplies,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
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The Israeli army accused Hamas of abusing hospitals in the Gaza Strip for military purposes. The allegation was swiftly denied by Hamas, and the main United Nations agency working in Gaza said earlier it had mechanisms in place to prevent aid being diverted.
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“Hamas wages war from hospitals” in Gaza, military spokesman Daniel Hagari told journalists, adding that Hamas was also using fuel stored in hospitals to help carry out its operations.
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Mr Hagari specifically identified Al-Shifa hospital, the largest in Gaza, as one from which Hamas men were operating. “Terrorists move freely” in Shifa and other hospitals, he said.
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“Hamas-ISIS is sick. They turn hospitals into headquarters for their terror. We just released intelligence proving it,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, showing a video claiming how Hamas has been using Gaza’s largest hospital for military purpose.
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A senior member of the Hamas political bureau, Izzat al-Rishq, swiftly fired back at the allegations from the Israeli army, calling them unfounded. “There’s no basis in truth in what the spokesman of the enemy army stated,” Mr Rishq said, accusing Israel of making up the allegations to “pave the way for a new massacre to be committed against our people”.
With inputs from AFP
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