Israel’s army said Thursday that it has effectively surrounded Gaza City and that it killed “over 130 terrorists” in its ongoing ground operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Military officials declared Wednesday that Israeli forces had breached Hamas’s first line of defense and were approaching Gaza City, saying the deaths of 16 soldiers this week in and near Gaza were a “heavy price.”

A senior Hamas official has warned that his fighters will repeat the October 7 massacres in Israel until the Jewish nation is annihilated.

Israel’s military said Wednesday that 11 troops died in ground fighting in the Gaza Strip, taking the number of Israeli military killed since October 7 to at least 326.

Senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk says the tunnels his fighters build are for themselves and not to hide civilians despite thousands reportedly dying in Israeli air strikes provoked by them.

Israel’s army said Tuesday it suffered its first casualties in Gaza, where it hit a refugee camp and killed a “commander” of “terrorist organization Hamas” and “many other terrorists.”

srael’s National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz, the retired army general who now leads Israel’s emergency war cabinet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday published a video address to Arab citizens of Israel, telling them that they are an “inseparable part of Israeli society” and share Israel’s “destiny,” the Jerusalem Post reports.

As Israeli forces continue the fight to dismantle the Hamas terror organization in Gaza, Israel’s government has agreed to allow 100 trucks into the coastal enclave each day, a US official told The Times of Israel (TOI) on Monday.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flatly rejected calls for a cease-fire in comments to the press on Monday.

American and allied forces in Iraq and Syria have been attacked with drones and rockets 23 times this month, a senior US defense official said Monday, as regional tensions soar over the Israel-Hamas war.

Israel on Monday urged Russia’s government to act against antisemitism after an anti-Israel mob stormed an airport in Russia, but Moscow blamed “outside interference” for the incident.

Israel says its military has freed an Israeli soldier held in Gaza by Hamas.

Israel is expanding its ground offensive with armored vehicles being seen on Gaza’s main north-south road, close to Gaza City, in an operation that Israeli leaders say is aimed at “destroying the Hamas terrorist organization.”

The Israel Defense Forces on Saturday struck a number of Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response to missile and rocket attacks, and additionally hit terror operatives preparing to carry out new attacks on northern Israel.

President Joe Biden Wednesday stressed the United States believes the conflict between Israel and Hamas must end with a vision of a “two-state solution.”

Thousands have broken into aid depots in a “worrying sign of civil order starting to break down” in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) says.

Pope Francis on Sunday demanded an immediate ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and said he prays for an end to “the violence in the Holy Land,” especially in Gaza, where minority Christians are among those suffering.

An Israeli ground offensive appeared underway in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, with the Israeli defense minister saying that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) entered the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory.

Israel’s army said it has killed a mastermind behind the October 7 attacks that killed 1,400 people in Israel.

The Israeli military said its troops and tanks briefly entered northern Gaza overnight into Thursday, hitting several terrorist targets as a wider ground incursion loomed after more than two weeks of heavy air raids.