Israel Surrounds Home Of Architect Hamas Massacres; House-To-House Clashes Continue
By Worthy News’ George Whitten and Stefan J. Bos
GAZA/JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – Israeli forces have surrounded the Gaza home of the alleged architect of the October 7 attacks in which Hamas fighters killed about 1,200 people and took 240 others hostage, several sources confirmed Thursday.
The standoff around the home of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar continued Thursday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “It’s only a matter of time before we get him.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Sinwar “is hiding underground,” a development a senior Netanyahu adviser described as a “symbolic victory.”
The military move came as Israeli forces and Hamas fought house-to-house battles along the length of the Gaza Strip, despite United Nations warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe in the Palestinian enclave.
As fighting intensified, the United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres invoked a rarely used clause in the United Nations charter to warn that the conflict “may aggravate existing threats to international peace and security.”
Guterres, in a letter to the Security Council, said he expects “public order to completely break down soon due to the desperate conditions” in Gaza as the territory comes under constant Israeli bombardment.
In response, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, said Guterres “reached a new moral low” and once again called for him to resign. Israel has made clear it tries to avoid civilian casualties but accuses Hamas of using them as human shields.
ISRAELI TROOPS FIGHTING
As the Israeli troops fought their way through badly bomb-damaged urban areas in northern and southern Gaza, Hamas increasingly relied on improvised bombs to inflict casualties and slow down the assault, witnesses said.
The focal points of the fighting over the past two days have been the Jabalia refugee camp and the Shuja’iyya district in northern Gaza, and Khan Younis and Bani Suheila in the south, officials said.
Israeli forces have surrounded the city of Khan Younis and are now operating “in the heart” of the southern Gaza city, the IDF said on Wednesday.
The IDF also urged residents of Khan Younis to flee the city for safer areas on Wednesday morning, noting “there would be a pause until 2 pm in the bombardment of Rafah” immediately to the south on the Egyptian border.
Residents reported that the IDF dropped leaflets in the area quoting a verse in the Koran, deemed a holy book by Muslims.
As aid workers claimed nowhere in Gaza is safe anymore, the United States discussed with Israel its timeline for military operations in Gaza. It was crucial to discuss “how this [military operation] falls into a longer-term strategy for addressing this issue that goes beyond just military means,” said White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan. “We have talked to them about timetables. I don’t want to share that because Israel has already kind of telegraphed precisely the location of its ground operation, and I don’t want to be the one telegraphing timetables.”
The comments came as British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said Thursday he uses a trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories to push for humanitarian aid to be delivered faster, including by sea directly into Gaza. “We are working to find the best way to get aid and support to those in desperate need in the quickest and most direct route. That includes options by land, sea, and air,” Shapps said.
THOUSANDS ALLEGEDLY KILLED
Yet the Hamas-run health ministry says aid comes too late for the 1,207 Palestinians who it claims have been killed since the collapse of a temporary ceasefire last week. The health ministry says, “70 percent of the dead were women and children.”
At least 16,248 people, including 7,112 children and 4,885 women, were killed in Gaza since Israel launched its military operations on October 7, according to ministry officials.
There are reported to be more than 7,600 people missing. However, it has not been possible for journalists to independently verify casualty figures in Gaza, which has no press freedom. In addition, Hamas has not said how many fighters were among those killed.
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas after it carried out the worst recorded atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, on October 7. The day the massacres occurred has been dubbed “Black Sabbath” in Israel.
However, Israel’s military actions have been complicated by news that U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked the advance of a $110 billion package of wartime funding for Israel and Ukraine.
They want to force U.S. President Joe Biden to include changes to U.S. border policy, saying America is getting overwhelmed by migrants arriving illegally in the United States through the Mexico-U.S. border.
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