Israel achieves almost total control of the northern Gaza Strip

The Israeli Army has achieved almost total control of the northern Gaza Strip in the war against the Islamist group Hamas, while the population of the Palestinian enclave sinks deeper and deeper into an unprecedented humanitarian crisis.

Israeli troops are in “the final stages of operational control” of northern Gaza, as its soldiers fight the remnants of the local Hamas battalion in the Daraj and Tufah neighborhoods of Gaza City, Daniel said at a news conference. Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli Army.

Additionally, “Israel Defense Forces troops continue ground operations in Khan Younis,” in the southern part of the Strip, and soldiers “are preparing to expand activity to additional areas of the Strip, with an emphasis on the south,” he added.

The Army revealed this Friday the discovery of another large network of Hamas tunnels in Issa, south of Gaza City, a city located in the north of the Palestinian enclave, and published images showing a trained dog checking the underground passages.

They are “tunnels hundreds of meters long, which include command and communication rooms, hiding places, concrete bunkers and water and electricity installations,” said a military spokesperson.

“This multi-level structure served as an underground barracks. Its floors were used for storage, hiding places, command and control and movement of operations between different areas,” he added, specifying that the tunnel was destroyed.

On the other hand, Israeli forces “attacked the Hamas headquarters in the Issa area, identified a terrorist cell that was trying to attack the forces and eliminated it in hand-to-hand combat,” the spokesman said.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant stressed that his troops are intensifying the offensive in the south of the enclave, specifically in Khan Yunis, where Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, is believed to be hiding.

Sinwar “will soon face the barrels of our weapons,” the minister said in statements reported by the local press.

On the other hand, the Army reported that two of its soldiers perished in the fighting: a 31-year-old general died in southern Gaza, the highest-ranking soldier among the 139 killed in the Gaza ground offensive, as well as a 19-year-old sergeant, who was killed by a Hezbollah attack on the Lebanese border.

In total, 472 Israeli soldiers have died in the war, most of them repelling the Hamas attack on October 7, which left 1,200 dead and 250 kidnapped and sparked the escalation of the war.

Gaza in crisis

Meanwhile, Israel continues to hit Gaza with bombings, despite growing international criticism for the high number of victims: 20,057 dead and 53,320 wounded, most of them children, women and the elderly, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas.

Health warned that some 6,700 people are still under the rubble or their fate is unknown, so the numbers may be higher.

He also denounced new attacks on hospitals such as Al Awda, in northern Gaza, where one of the employees was killed by a sniper.

“Those trapped inside Al Awda hospital are in a state of terror, with snipers, arrests and torture, without water, without food and without medicine,” the ministry warned about the siege by Israeli forces at the health center.

For its part, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported heavy shelling in front of the Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis.

The official Palestinian agency Wafa reported Israeli bombings in areas such as the center of the Strip, where Israel's military offensive is also now taking place after having started in the north and then expanded to the south.

After the outbreak of the war, the Strip is experiencing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis due to the shortage of drinking water, food, medicine, electricity and fuel, in addition to the collapse of hospitals and the outbreak of epidemics in the middle of winter.

Although Israel allows the entry of trucks with humanitarian aid, this happens in dribs and drabs and in insufficient quantities for the 1.9 million displaced people, almost the entire population, since the Israeli authorities take a long time to thoroughly check each truck before to enter the enclave.

The UN Security Council approved a resolution this Friday to promote the sending of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, after a week of intense negotiations.

The initiative, presented by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), had to be rewritten several times due to the objections of the United States, which has the right of veto, and which finally abstained, as did Russia.

The text asks the UN Secretary General, António Guterres, to appoint a special coordinator to monitor and verify the sending of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave.