ISRAEL’S war on Gaza militants will be “long and difficult”, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned yesterday as Hamas demanded the release of all Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages it seized three weeks ago.

The United Nations warned thousands more civilians could die in Gaza as Israel said ground forces were still operating inside the Hamas-run territory more than 24 hours after entering it on Friday.

And the head of the International Red Cross appealed for an end to the “intolerable” suffering of Gaza’s civilians.

Israel unleashed a massive bombing campaign after Hamas gunmen stormed across the Gaza border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 230 hostages, according to Israeli officials.

More than 8,000 people have since been killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza, half of them children, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in the Palestinian territory said yesterday.

The Hamas authorities reported that a “large number” of people had been killed overnight in Israeli air strikes on two refugee camps in northern Gaza. 

Israel’s Home Front Command earlier warned residents in the southern cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon of incoming missile and rocket attacks.

Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said it had dispatched first responders to the scenes of “reported rocket strikes”. No casualties were reported.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk warned of “the possibly catastrophic consequences of large-scale ground operations in Gaza”, saying “thousands more civilians” could die.

Mirjana Spoljaric, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, appealed yesterday for all sides to deescalate the conflict.

“It is unacceptable that civilians have no safe place to go in Gaza amid the massive bombardments, and with a military siege in place there is also no adequate humanitarian response currently possible,” she said.

“This is a catastrophic failing that the world must not tolerate.”

‘New phase in the war’

The intense strikes against Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, provided cover for Israeli ground forces to step up operations.

“Since early Friday evening, combined combat forces of armour, combat engineers and infantry have been operating on the ground in the northern Gaza Strip,” the Israeli army said late yesterday.

Israel has massed tens of thousands of troops along the Gaza border raising expectations of a full-blown invasion, with its soldiers also making limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday.

“This is the second stage of the war whose goals are clear: destroying the military and leadership capabilities of Hamas, and bringing the hostages back home,” Netanyahu told journalists.

“The war in the (Gaza) Strip will be long and difficult and we are prepared for it,” he said, describing an “existential test” for Israel.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant earlier said “we’ve entered a new phase in the war”.

He added: “We attacked above the ground and below the ground,” alluding to the network of tunnels Hamas has built under Gaza.

Israeli fighter jets dropped leaflets over Gaza City warning residents that the area was now a “battlefield”, that shelters in northern Gaza were not safe, and they should “evacuate immediately” to the south.

The army delivered similar warnings earlier in its campaign, but many who fled south have returned home after failing to find refuge from Israeli bombing. – AFP, October 29, 2023.