Israel blockades Gaza as it counters Hamas firepower

Tribune News Service

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, October 9

Israel has amassed tanks, shut off electricity and stopped all food and medicines as a prelude to a bloody ground invasion into Gaza Strip, said to be the most densely populated piece of land in the world, even as its air force continued pounding the Hamas stronghold and the military battled militants for the third day.

Hamas attack at music fest kills 260

Jerusalem: The outdoor Tribe of Nova music festival was meant to be an all-night dance party in a rural area near the Gaza-Israel border, where thousands of young people would celebrate the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. But it became a site of deadly chaos when Hamas militants attacked the festival in the desert area early on Saturday, killing an estimated 260 people. AP

While the Israeli military said it had called an unprecedented 3,00,000 reservists, Hamas said it would execute Israeli captives if civilian houses were bombed. The situation remained serious in Israel with rockets slamming into Jerusalem and southern towns, suggesting that the Israeli military is yet to fully suppress Hamas’ firepower.

Tensions were also high in the occupied West Bank where a complete shutdown was observed in solidarity with Israel’s aerial assaults on Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said some Palestinian militants were still at large and a few were continuing to enter the southern parts of the country. There was an aborted effort to enter from Lebanon and most of the attackers were reportedly shot dead with Hezbollah denying any role in the incursion.

Consensus eludes UNSC meeting on Hamas

Israel’s military intensified the airstrikes with over 500 targets hit in Gaza since Sunday night. Among the killed were 19 members of a family huddled in a house and five bystanders. The Gazans were, however, unfazed, while enduring the sixth Israeli air assault in the past 15 years. Over 1.2 lakh Gazans have been displaced from their homes, with many seeking limited shelter in schools, according to the UN. “This is something we’ve seen before through long decades of occupation. This is a policy that Israel has been using for decades simply to punish the entire population for the acts of certain groups of people,” a Gazan was reported as saying. Elsewhere, the Israeli military shot dead four Palestinians at a checkpoint and also killed a man trying to ram them with a bulldozer.

The toll was rising on both sides. The UN and other humanitarian bodies put the numbers at over 1,300, with at least ten times more injured and a couple of hundred kidnapped by Hamas and believed to be held in the Gaza Strip’s maze of bylanes and underground concrete tunnels.

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