The Israeli army described the road linking the north and south of the Gaza Strip as “a battlefield” on Monday after the resumption of the offensive against Hamas, adding that routes for civilians will be opened.
Avichai Adrai, spokesperson of the Israeli army for the Arab media, stated in a message published on the social network north and east of Khan Younis”.
“In these sectors, Saladin Road is a battlefield, so it is very dangerous to go there,” he warned, before defending that the army is “acting strongly against Hamas and terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip, especially in the Khan Yunis zone. ” .
Adrai stressed that the military “will allow the humanitarian movement of civilians through a bypass west of Khan Yunis.”
Israel announced a ground offensive in the south of the Gaza Strip on Sunday afternoon, after weeks of operations targeting the north and center of the territory, despite bombardments taking place across the territory since October 7.
Authorities in the Gaza Strip, under the control of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas since 2007, today increased the death toll in the Israeli offensive to nearly 15,900, while more than 250 Palestinians died at the hands of forces in Tel Aviv or at attacks carried out by settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since October 7.
During the first phase of the offensive, Israel ordered the Palestinian population to leave the north of the Strip and move south, arguing that this would be safer, although it also carried out hundreds of bomb attacks in this region, prompting several international condemnations.
The United Nations has emphasized on several occasions that there are “no safe zones” in the Gaza Strip and has criticized Israel for these evacuation orders – in a process that involved opening routes that were attacked on several occasions – as there are no guarantees of security. or return for the displaced, who total about 1.9 million Palestinians, according to the latest data from the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East (UNRWA).
The ongoing war in the Middle East began on October 7, following an attack by Hamas’s armed wing that saw the launch of thousands of rockets at Israel and the infiltration of about 3,000 fighters that killed more than 1,200 people, mostly civilians. and kidnapped another 240 people in Israeli villages near the Gaza Strip.
In retaliation, Israeli forces launched a brutal offensive by air, land and sea into that Palestinian enclave, which is facing a serious humanitarian crisis due to the collapse of hospitals and the lack of shelter, drinking water, food, medicine and electricity.
The sides ceased hostilities for a week under a truce brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, but clashes returned on Friday after a lack of agreement to extend the deal.
Source: DN
