Hamas soldiers are in fierce battles against Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian group’s armed wing said late Sunday afternoon. “Our fighters are currently fighting fierce battles with machine guns and armor-piercing weapons against invading occupation forces in northwest Gaza,” the Qassam Brigades said in a statement. Over the weekend, the Israeli army (IDF) expanded its ground operation in Gaza by sending new soldiers to the besieged enclave. The IDF also reports on battles against Hamas in the north of the Gaza Strip. But the attacks have also gone the other way. On Sunday evening, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported ten rocket attacks against northern Israel. One of them reportedly hit a house in the town of Kiryat Shmona. No one is said to have died in the attack. The IDF is said to have fired back at Lebanon, the newspaper reports. Hospital staff refuse to leave Palestinian Red Crescent says Israeli authorities have said Al-Quds hospital must be evacuated immediately. – Since Sunday morning, there have been several attacks just 50 meters from the hospital, the organization writes on Facebook. Al-Quds Hospital is located in Gaza City in the north of the Gaza Strip. But hospital staff refuse to evacuate. – We have over 400 patients in the hospital, many of them in the intensive care unit. Evacuating them would mean killing them. Therefore, we refuse to follow the order to evacuate. This is what a representative of the Palestinian Red Crescent says in a video that the aid organization has posted on X. The Palestinian Red Crescent is now asking the international community to intervene “to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe”. – We also have 14,000 civilians in the hospital, most of them children and women, who are on the run because of the continued bombing in Gaza. Now the Al-Qud hospital and all the patients, medical staff and the 14,000 civilians are in danger of being bombed at any time. We call on the whole world to intervene immediately. A Palestinian wounded in an Israeli bombardment is taken to a hospital in Gaza. Photo: Hatem Moussa / AP The Palestinian Red Crescent is the largest ambulance operator in the Gaza Strip and operates two hospitals: Al-Quds Hospital, located in Gaza City, and Al Amal Hospital in Khan Younis, located in the south. UN: Thousands have broken into emergency aid warehouses in the Gaza Strip The break-ins have occurred in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, and wheat flour and other basic products were stolen from UNRWA warehouses and distribution centers, UNRWA writes in a press release. – This is a worrying sign that public order is beginning to break down after three weeks of war and the siege of the Gaza Strip. People are scared, frustrated and desperate, writes UNRWA. Israel today reopened a water pipeline that runs from Israel to Gaza, according to the newspaper Haaretz. This will be the second water pipe Israel reopens in recent days. Israel has been heavily criticized after it imposed a full blockade of Gaza and cut off the import of water, food, medicine and electricity to the more than two million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Humanitarian aid being transported to the Gaza Strip on 29 October. Photo: HANDOUT / AFP Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan of the International Criminal Court (ICC) says that preventing emergency aid from reaching the civilian population of Gaza “could constitute a crime under the jurisdiction of the ICC”, according to Reuters. Khan also says that Israel must make real efforts to ensure that civilians receive food and medicine. The blockade is a response to the terrorist attack that Hamas carried out against Israel on 7 October. Still hostages in Gaza In addition to killing around 1,400 in Israel, Hamas took over 200 Israelis hostage in Gaza. Only a few of these have been released. Noam Dan, who represents the families of the abducted and missing, met with Israeli President Isaac Herzog today. She left the meeting “excited and worried, because we are 22 days late and our families are still in Gaza,” writes Haaretz. A demonstration for missing and abducted Israelis in London on 29 October. Photo: JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP According to Dan, for the first time the bereaved received an answer to how and why humanitarian aid has entered Gaza without receiving information from the Red Cross about their loved ones in return. They were reportedly told that the aid was only given to civilians traveling to the southern Gaza Strip. Dan, who had her cousin Erez Calderon and his two children Sahar (16) and Erez (12) abducted, said at the end of the meeting that “a disaster has happened to us, we have to return them. Too many people are returning to routine, to classes, to restaurants and tweeting about politics”. On Sunday evening, Major General Rafi Milo, head of the IDF’s Home Front Command, said the war could last weeks or months and that the economy must be opened. – Because this is going to be a long war, there must be a routine that we will slowly develop. It is important to open up the economy and allow studies without restrictions where possible, said Milo during a press briefing.
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Fierce battles between Hamas and Israeli forces – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
