TEMPO.CO, Gaza - Israeli tanks and troops pressed towards Gaza City on Thursday, Nov. 2, but met fierce resistance from Hamas militants using mortars and hit-and-run attacks from tunnels as the Palestinian death toll from nearly four weeks of bombardments mounted.
The war is closing in on the Gaza Strip's main population centre in the north where Israel has vowed to annihilate the Islamist group's command structure and told civilians to leave.
"We are at the gates of Gaza City," said Israeli military commander Brigadier General Itzik Cohen.
Fighters of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad were emerging from tunnels to fire at tanks, then disappearing back into the network, residents said and videos from both groups showed, in guerrilla-style operations against a far more powerful army.
"They never stopped bombing Gaza City all night, the house never stopped shaking," said one man living there, asking not to be identified by name. "But in the morning we discover the Israeli forces are still outside the city, in the outskirts and that means the resistance is heavier than they expected."
Aware of the difficulties of fighting in an urban environment, Israeli officers' strategy appears for now to be concentrating large forces in the northern Gaza Strip rather than launching a ground assault on the entire territory.
The latest war in the decades-old conflict began when Hamas fighters broke through the border on Oct. 7. Israel says they killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostages in the deadliest day of its 75-year history.
Israel's ensuing bombardment of the small Palestinian enclave of 2.3 million people has killed at least 8,796 people, including 3,648 children, according to Gaza health authorities.
Though Western nations and the United States in particular have traditionally supported Israel, harrowing images of bodies in the rubble and hellish conditions inside Gaza have triggered appeals for restraint and street protests around the world.
Residents reported mortar fire around Gaza City and said Israeli tanks and bulldozers were sometimes driving over rubble and knocking down structures rather than using regular roads.
REUTERS
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