Israel attempts ground incursion into Gaza amid unprecedented bombing, non-binding UN resolution on ceasefire

More than two million Palestinians experienced yet another night of terror between Friday and Saturday in the Gaza Strip under airstrikes and heavy artillery bombardment from the sea, in addition to attempts at ground intervention from the Israeli army.

This was taking place in complete darkness, amid Israel’s full suspension of communication networks and internet services, with only bright red and orange flashes lighting up the sky as shells detonated across the strip.

Mada Masr has been unable to reach a Gaza-based journalist we have been working with over the past few weeks, and we are still unable to check on her. Another journalist checked in after appearing online a short while ago, getting access through one of the few remaining active communication points in Gaza.

Ambulances and civil defense service workers were disrupted by the suspended communication networks, forcing a number of Palestinians to walk long distances under threat of bombardment only to report emergency cases, according to statements issued by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Khan Younis and published by the Palestinian Al-Jarmaq News. A reporter from Al Jazeera described people transporting their dead and wounded on animal-drawn carts.

The Palestinian Health Ministry announced earlier today that Israel committed 53 massacres throughout the night, raising the number of Palestinian victims of the Israeli aggression to 7,703, including 3,595 children. During the night, the Israeli Defense Forces violently bombed various areas across the strip, with a specific focus on the northwestern axis. Multiple raids of artillery shelling and the internationally banned white phosphorus were launched toward the areas surrounding the Dar al-Shifa Hospital — the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip which Israel has hinted at targeting after claiming that Hamas leaders are hiding in tunnels underneath it and the Indonesian Hospital.

The raids also targeted al-Shati refugee camp and the Shujaaiyya, Zaytoun and Tuffah neighborhoods in eastern and central Gaza with intense bombing, focusing on residential areas in particular, as well as areas east of Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.

Al Jazeera’s Gaza Strip office director, Wael al-Dahdouh, said that certain squares in the north-eastern regions of the strip were reduced to rubble after areas in the vicinity of Beit Hanoun, Jabalia refugee camp and al-Tuffah neighborhood were targeted by aerial and artillery bombardment as a prelude to the IDF’s possible start of on-ground assaults.

Yesterday’s unprecedented bombing campaign against Gaza pushed some families of the Israeli hostages held in the strip to demand an urgent Israeli War Council meeting after expressing concern about the army’s possible escalation through a field operation.

An IDF spokesperson announced on Saturday morning that 150 targets were killed in Gaza last night and that the assassinations were carried out against Hamas field commanders, adding that no Israeli casualties resulted from yesterday’s operation and that the forces stationed in the strip are still in their positions.

On the other hand, the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, announced on Saturday morning that it was involved in violent clashes with Israeli elements after ground incursions into Beit Hanoun and east of the Bureij refugee camp on Friday night. A number of Israeli vehicles were also bombed after entering the Amrikeyya area northwest of Beit Lahia.

Other sources denied to the Quds News Network earlier today that Israeli forces were able to make any progress in a ground invasion through borders with the strip, pointing out that Palestinian resistance forces responded to multiple incursion attempts by setting up ambushes. During the clashes, the resistance fired anti-armor missiles, forcing the Israeli forces to retreat and position themselves behind sand barriers beyond the border with Gaza.

Twenty-nine journalists were killed in the past three weeks by Israel’s unprecedented aggression against the strip, according to a statement issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists on Friday night, making this assault the bloodiest in terms of journalist casualties resulting from any conflict documented by the committee since its operation in 1992. The committee is “highly alarmed” by the communication network outage forced on Gaza, it said in its statement. “With news bureaus losing contact with their crews and journalists in Gaza, [...] the world is losing a window into the reality of all parties,” the statement read.

Meanwhile, the United Nations General Assembly saw an overwhelming majority approve a non-binding resolution on a ceasefire in Gaza after four failed attempts in the UN Security Council. One hundred and twenty countries voted in favor of the resolution and 14 rejected it, including Israel and the United States, while 45 countries abstained from voting, including Tunisia and Iraq.

While Hamas welcomed the decision and demanded its immediate implementation, Israel’s delegate to the United Nations responded to the resolution by saying that the UN “no longer holds even one ounce of legitimacy or relevance.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry described the decision as “despicable.” The draft resolution, which Jordan proposed, stipulated a humanitarian truce, called on all parties to adhere to it, highlighted the urgency of delivering aid to the strip immediately, rejected the Palestinians’ forced displacement inside Gaza, and called for the immediate and unconditional release of detained civilians.

In regard to its abstention vote, Iraq’s representative in the UN explained that they submitted an objection to the General Assembly’s president, blaming the vote on a “technical issue” experienced in the voting process and requesting a re-vote - which the UN approved.

Tunisia’s delegate said that the resolution puts the victim on equal ground with the aggressor, explaining that his country voted to abstain from the draft resolution based on its conviction that the unprecedentedly dangerous situation in the Gaza Strip and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories is a result of the continued brutal Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people.

A wave of applause broke out after the rejection of a request from Canada to amend the draft resolution to include an unequivocal condemnation of Hamas. Fifty-five countries, the majority of them Arab, voted against the amendment, and 23 abstained. The amendment to the draft resolution required two-thirds of the votes to pass.

Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb described the IDF’s tactics, which include intensive bombing and killing raids, enforced electricity and network outages, destruction of all aspects of everyday life and the intentional shrouding of any sources of facts and information, as “blind terrorism.” In addition, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres considered that “this is the moment of truth,” calling for a ceasefire, the release of the hostages and the entry of humanitarian aid into the strip.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Saturday in which it warned of the “humanitarian and security repercussions” of Israel’s expected ground invasion of the strip. Egypt also held the Israeli government responsible for violating yesterday’s United Nations resolution to immediately implement a “cease fire and a humanitarian truce to preserve the lives of civilians and allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip immediately and without interruption.”