Israeli forces fighting Hamas deep in Gaza City

Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, Nov. 9: Israeli ground forces were battling Hamas fighters deep inside Gaza’s largest city, Israel said Tuesday. The push signals a major new stage in the month-old conflict, and its leaders foresee controlling the enclave's security after the war.

The push into Gaza City guarantees that the already staggering death toll will rise further, while comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about controlling Gaza’s security for “an indefinite period” pointed to the uncertain endgame of a war that Israel says will be long and difficult.

Israeli ground troops have battled Palestinian militants inside Gaza for over a week, cutting the territory in half and encircling Gaza City. The army's chief spokesperson, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israeli ground forces “are located right now in a ground operation in the depths of Gaza City and putting great pressure on Hamas.”

Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad, speaking Tuesday from Beirut, denied that Israeli forces were making any significant military gains or that they had advanced deep into Gaza City.

“They never give the people the truth,” Hamad said. He added that numerous Israeli soldiers were killed Monday and “many tanks were destroyed.”

“The Palestinians fight and fight and fight against Israel, until we end the occupation,” said Hamad, who left Gaza days before Hamas' Oct. 7 incursion in southern Israel, which sparked the war.

The Associated Press could not independently verify the claims of either side.

Israelis commemorated the 30th day a milestone in Jewish mourning since the Hamas incursion, which killed 1,400 people. About 240 people Hamas abducted during the attack remain in Gaza, and more than 250,000 Israelis have evacuated homes near the borders of Gaza and Lebanon as rockets were continuously fired into Israel.

Hundreds of family members of the hostages held in Gaza joined supporters Tuesday beside the Western Wall in Jerusalem to call for the release of their loved ones.

“The hostages have been underground in Gaza for 32 days. I cry out to every single person here and every single person on the planet to make it your mission to free these souls,” said Rachel Goldberg, a prominent spokesperson for the hostage families, her voice breaking.

A month of relentless bombardment in Gaza since the Hamas attack has killed more than 10,300 Palestinians two-thirds of them women and minors, according to the Health Ministry of the Hamas-run territory. More than 2,300 are believed to be buried from strikes that reduced entire city blocks to rubble.

Around 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have fled their homes, and many of them are crowded into schools-turned-shelters run by the United Nations. Civilians in Gaza are relying on a trickle of aid and their own daily foraging for food and water from supplies that have dwindled after weeks of siege.

Israel unleashed another wave of strikes across the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as hundreds more Palestinians fled Gaza City to the south.

Some arrived on donkey carts, most on foot, some pushing elderly relatives in wheelchairs, all visibly exhausted. Many had nothing but the clothes on their backs.