Israel forces ‘divide Gaza in two’ as communications go down amid further heavy bombardment Israel’s military has said its forces have divided Gaza into two as it reaches a “significant stage” in its war against Hamas.
“Today there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said on Sunday night after troops reached the coastline.
He added that troops have surrounded Gaza City.The troops will enter Gaza City in the coming 48 hours, Israeli media reported.
Israel is still “allowing a corridor” for the residents of the northern Gaza Strip and Gaza City to go south.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Monday its ground forces “took control of a Hamas outpost in Gaza” on Sunday night and its jets had attacked 450 targets in the past day.
Amid the heavy bombardment Gaza came under the third total communications outage since the start of the war, according to reports.
But the “collapse in connectivity” across Gaza reported by internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmed by Palestinian telecom company Paltel made it even more complicated to convey details of the new stage of the military offensive.
“We have lost communication with the vast majority of the UNRWA team members,” UN Palestinian refugee agency spokesperson Juliette Touma told The Associated Press.
The first Gaza outage lasted 36 hours and the second one for a few hours.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken arrived in Turkey on Sunday night as he continues his diplomatic tour of the region and pushes for a pause in the fighting.
America’s most senior diplomat met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, a day after meeting Arab foreign ministers.
Mr Blinken said regional leaders would “welcome” a humanitarian pause in Gaza. But Israel says it needs progress on the release of hostages before agreeing to any pause in its offensive
Abbas, who has had no authority in Gaza since Hamas took over in 2007, said the Palestinian Authority would only assume control of Gaza as part of a “comprehensive political solution” establishing an independent state.
