DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Gaza lost communications Sunday in its third total outage of the Israel-Hamas war, while Israel’s military said it encircled Gaza City and divided the besieged coastal strip into two.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck two refugee camps, killing at least 53 people and wounding dozens in central Gaza, the zone where Israel’s military had urged Palestinian civilians to seek refuge, health officials said. Israel said it would press on with its offensive to crush Hamas, despitein Gaza, more than 4,000 of them children and minors. That toll likely will rise as Israeli troops advance into dense, urban neighborhoods.
“It was a true massacre,” he said. “All here are peaceful people. I challenge anyone who says there were resistance here.”Another airstrike hit a house near a school at the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Staff at Al-Aqsa Hospital told the AP at least 13 people were killed. The camp was struck on Thursday as well.
Palestinians flee the southern Gaza Strip on Salah al-Din street in Bureij on Sunday, Nov. 5, 2023. if Israel topples Hamas. The last peace talks with Israel broke down more than a decade ago, and Israel’s government is dominated by opponents of Palestinian statehood. Arab leaders have called for an immediate cease-fire. But Blinken said that “would simply leave Hamas in place, able to regroup and repeatSwaths of residential neighborhoods in northern Gaza have been leveled in airstrikes. The U.N. office for humanitarian affairs says more than half the remaining residents, estimated at around 300,000, are sheltering in U.N.-run facilities. The U.N.
Four civilians were killed by an Israeli airstrike in south Lebanon on Sunday evening, including three children, a local civil defense official and state-run media reported. The Israeli military said it had attacked Hezbollah targets in response to anti-tank fire that killed an Israeli civilian. Hezbollah said it fired Grad rockets from southern Lebanon into Israel in response.