Israeli forces reached the outskirts of Gaza City, taking their most advanced position since the outbreak of war with Hamas this month.
In what Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, called an expansion of ground operations, troops and tanks cut off one of the main arterial roads in Gaza. The military was also situated near Beit Hanoun, a heavily targeted town in the north.
Netanyahu told his war cabinet that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) were making “systematic progress” in their military campaign and had expanded “ground entry into the Gaza Strip ... in measured, powerful steps”.
The IDF reached two districts on the outskirts of Gaza City. A video released by the military showed armoured vehicles moving among buildings and soldiers taking positions inside a house. Israel said dozens of Hamas militants had been killed in clashes around Gaza’s largest city.
In Zaytun, a district to the south of the city about three kilometres from the border, Israeli forces cut off Salah al-Din street. It is one of the main routes running north to south in the territory, linking Gaza City and Khan Yunis in the south.
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“They have cut the Salah al-Din road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it,” a resident told the AFP news agency.
Another video that was circulating on social media showed a car doing a three-point turn after approaching a tank, one of dozens that made up the incursion. Before it could drive off, the tank opened fire and destroyed the vehicle.
“He’s gone, the whole family is gone,” one of those filming the incident could be heard shouting.
The number of casualties on both sides is expected to rise sharply as Israel expands its ground operation, with the fighting likely to take place in densely packed residential areas.
Rear-Admiral Daniel Hagari, chief spokesman for the IDF, said the military operation was “gradually moving ahead according to plan”, but did not confirm how many personnel Israel had deployed inside the Palestinian territory or their locations.
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The Israeli air force said it had hit more than 600 targets on Sunday and yesterday, including “weapons warehouses, hiding places and gatherings of Hamas operatives and anti-tank positions”. In retaliation, Hamas continued to fire rockets from positions in Gaza, including towards Tel Aviv, Israel’s biggest city.
Salama Maarouf, the head of the Hamas government office in Gaza, claimed that Israeli tanks had retreated from the outskirts of Gaza City. “There’s absolutely no ground advance inside the residential neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip. What happened on Salah al-Din street was the incursion of a few occupation army tanks and a bulldozer,” he said in a statement, which could not be independently verified.
From a vantage point in Sderot an almost constant barrage of Israeli air and artillery fire could be seen hitting targets in and around Beit Hanoun.
The bombardment is now in its fourth week, but as well as the plumes of smoke rising from freshly hit targets, Israeli troops, tanks and bulldozers could be spotted near the town.
Netanyahu, 74, who has faced increasing pressure over the fate of more than 230 people taken hostage and held in Gaza, said that alongside the army strikes, “we are continuing our efforts to free the abducted people, even during the [land] operation”.
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He said: “The operation even creates opportunities to obtain [their] liberation and we will not miss them.”
Netanyahu also rejected demands for a ceasefire, claiming that such calls would cause Israel “to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. That will not happen.”
He added: “The Bible says that there is a time for peace and a time for war. This is a time for war.”
Netanyahu’s comments were backed up by Yoav Gallant, his defence minister, who warned at an earlier press conference of a long battle between Israeli and Hamas forces.
“It won’t be a short war, it won’t be an easy war,” he said, adding that Israel was striking Hamas “above and underground from the air, land and sea”.
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At a makeshift food stand staffed by volunteers, Ido Antal, 35, a sergeant from Jerusalm, was waiting patiently. “It is better than the rations provided by the military,” he said.
It may also have been the last meal he had before his unit, part of the IDF’s Padam, or Southern Command, crossed into Gaza to fight Hamas.
“We’re going in later today, those are our orders,” Antal said. “Every day there are new orders, but we’ve been seeing a lot more missions taking place inside Gaza. We’re still hitting them heavily with missiles and artillery but more soldiers are crossing in now. It’s getting more intense.”
Israel has told Palestinian civilians to leave the north of the Gaza Strip, where Gaza City and Beit Hanoun are located. Thousands of people are thought to remain, however.
The UN says that hospitals in northern Gaza are coming under growing threat after strikes hit targets close to the Shifa and Al Quds hospitals in Gaza City, as well as hospitals in the north of the territory financed by Indonesia and Turkey.
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Gaza’s health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, says that more than 8,000 people have been killed since the start of the war, more than half of them children.
“You can see that more and more of us are going in,” said a soldier in an Israeli military intelligence unit who was waiting at the same food stand as Antal.
The soldier said he was not senior enough to give his name or rank to the media, but added: “Things are moving very rapidly now. There is a lot more activity very close to the border and inside Gaza.”
