Israeli tanks meet heavy resistance

As the United States said that Palestinians must rule Gaza after the conflict, it countered Israeli claims that it would maintain security permanently. Street fighting broke out in Gaza City, with Hamas fighters ambushing Israeli forces using tunnels.

As of Wednesday, 10,569 individuals had died, 40% of them were minors, according to Palestinian officials. Israel claims that 33 of its soldiers have died, but the real figure is probably much higher.

The resistance organization stated that its fighters had severely damaged the invading forces, while the Israeli military declared that its forces had advanced into the “heart of Gaza City,” the largest city in the Mediterranean enclave and Hamas’ primary stronghold.

#BREAKING New extensive Hamas footage showing clashes with IDF forces in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/A3AZ7nngfW

— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 8, 2023

According to sources within Hamas and the independent Islamic Jihad rebel group, Israeli tanks have encountered fierce opposition from Hamas fighters who set up ambushes using underground tunnels.

Israel has ordered Palestinians to leave the area it has encircled, but thousands of them have sought sanctuary at Al Shifa Hospital within Gaza City. They claim they have nowhere else to go and are taking refuge in tents on the hospital grounds.

For the seventh day in a row, the Israeli military opened a four-hour corridor, telling people living in the north to relocate south, according to the UN humanitarian office OCHA.

Evacuees were reportedly put in danger by ongoing clashes and firing along the main road. The Israeli military had instructed the evacuees to abandon their vehicles at the southern border of Gaza City, thus most of them were traveling on foot while corpses lay by the road, according to the report.

The 2.3 million people that make up Gaza are already densely populated in hospitals, schools, and other locations in the south due to the large number of displaced individuals.

While the majority of the combat is in the north, there have also been frequent attacks in the south. Residents of Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, combed through the twisted wreckage of a structure that had been demolished by an Israeli air strike on Thursday morning in an attempt to locate survivors, according to witnesses.

“As deaths and injuries in Gaza continue to rise due to intensified hostilities, intense overcrowding and disrupted health, water, and sanitation systems pose an added danger: the rapid spread of infectious diseases,” stated the World Health Organization.

Washington has initiated talks with Israeli and Arab officials about a future for the Gaza Strip free of Hamas rule, as the fighting and the ensuing siege of Gaza approach their second month.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out Washington’s expectations for the embattled coastal area, albeit a plan has not yet materialized.

“After the conflict is over, Gaza will not be reoccupied. Not a single attempt to siege or blockade Gaza. No shrinking of Gaza’s area,” Blinken declared during a press conference in Tokyo on Wednesday.

New IDF footage from Gaza. pic.twitter.com/6MBt0huevL

— Clash Report (@clashreport) November 9, 2023

As for post-crisis administration, Blinken stated that while “some transition period” could be necessary once the conflict ends, it “must include Palestinian-led governance and Gaza unified with the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of Israel, stated to ABC News on Monday that Israel will be in charge of the enclave’s security “for an indefinite period” following the conflict.

Since then, Israeli authorities have made an effort to make it clear that they do not plan to occupy Gaza after the battle, but they have not yet explained how they would guarantee security in the absence of a military presence. In 2005, Israel pulled its troops out of Gaza.

Gaza, which Hamas has controlled since 2007, is seen by the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in certain areas of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as an essential component of its vision for a future Palestinian state.

One of Hamas’s commanders, Khalil al-Hayya, told the New York Times that the organization’s attack on Israel was meant to upend the current order and start a fresh conflict with Israel.

According to the newspaper on Wednesday, he stated, “We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.”

An exiled Hamas leader named Saleh al-Arouri told Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV on Wednesday that his militants are committed to defeating Israeli soldiers in foot combat in Gaza. “The more (Israel) spreads and expands on the ground, the deeper its losses will become” , he stated.

In a scene taken from the Hamas film that was made public on Wednesday, fighters in Gaza were seen sprinting across debris mounds and pausing to fire anti-tank missiles against Israeli tanks. Another depicted them firing weapons from atop trash and buildings.

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesperson for the Israeli military, asserted on Wednesday that “Hamas has lost control in the north” of Gaza.

He stated that Israel’s combat engineers were employing explosives to dismantle the hundreds of kilometers (miles) of tunnels that Hamas has dug beneath Gaza. According to the Israeli military, 130 underground shafts have been destroyed thus far.

On Wednesday, Israeli military brought foreign journalists to the outskirts of Gaza City. Journalists observed a ruined environment with combat scars on every building in the area.

Walls were destroyed by explosions, palm trees were torn and damaged, and the facades were peppered with bullet holes and shrapnel.

The 401st Brigade’s deputy commander, Lieutenant Colonel Ido (last name withheld), asserted that all of the families had departed by the time Israeli soldiers arrived at these premises.

We are aware that everyone in this room is an adversary. There aren’t any civilians in this area. Just Hamas,” he uttered.

Under the family dwelling, according to soldiers giving a press tour, were two storeys of workshops where weaponry were made, including drones found inside five wooden crates. It was not feasible to confirm the assertion.

50,000 Palestinians forced to leave and head south

Wednesday saw the forcible eviction of about 50,000 Palestinian civilians in the north during a four-hour “window of opportunity” that Israel had declared.

Residents in the north have been warned by the Israeli military on several occasions to leave or face becoming enmeshed in the violence. The interior ministry of the enclave reported that an Israeli attack on a home close to a hospital on Wednesday killed at least 19 people. The incident occurred in the Jabalia refugee camp in north Gaza.

Regarding the reported attack, which, if verified, would be the third on Gaza’s biggest refugee camp in a week, there was no immediate word from Israel.

In order to help civilians in Gaza, where supplies of food, medication, and fuel are running low, UN representatives and the G7 world powers intensified their calls for a humanitarian pause in the fighting.

According to a source briefed on the talks on Wednesday, negotiations mediated by Qatar, the home base of senior Hamas leadership leaders, are attempting to obtain the release of 10 to 15 hostages in exchange for a one- to two-day humanitarian halt in Gaza.