Israeli tanks enter Gaza City which is ‘on the brink of social collapse’, aid workers warn as IDF troops are pelted with rocks as they also carry out raids on Palestinian armed groups in West Bank

Israeli tanks entered Gaza City today, while IDF troops were pelted with rocks as they carried out raids against armed Palestinian groups in the West Bank.

The signs that the Jewish state was stepping up its military operations in the region came as a UN official warned the Gaza Strip was on the brink of social collapse, with mobs looting warehouses for food and families forced to drink dirty water.

Fears for the more than 2.2 million living in the small territory are rising rapidly as Israel presses on with the ‘second stage’ of its war to eliminate Hamas.

The Israeli military said it had killed ‘dozens’ of the terror group’s fighters overnight in clashes inside Gaza. Hamas also said its fighters were engaged in ‘heavy fighting’ with Israeli forces in northern Gaza.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the assault would be ‘long and difficult.

In response to the terror attack on Israel by Hamas on October 7 which killed at least 1,400 people, the IDF launched a relentless retaliatory bombardment which the health ministry in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip says has killed 8,000 civilians.

Gaza’s population in the north of the territory – some 1.1 million people – have been ordered to evacuate south in anticipation of the Israeli ground offensive, plunging the region even deeper into a humanitarian crisis.

Israel was ‘gradually moving ahead according to plan’ in the Gaza Strip, chief military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said during a press briefing on Monday.

Israeli tanks entered the edge of Gaza City and cut a key road from the north to the south of the war-torn Palestinian territory, witnesses told AFP today.

‘They are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it,’ one resident said, with footage appearing to show an Israeli tank destroying a car. 

Witnesses also said tanks were seen in the Zaytun district. ‘They have cut the Salahedin road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it,’ one said.

Clashes also broke out in the West Bank, the Palestinian territory in the east of Israel. At least four Palestinians were killed there in clashes early Monday between Israeli forces and Palestinians in Jenin, the scene of repeated Israeli raids against gunmen.

As of Sunday, Israeli forces and settlers killed 115 Palestinians, including 33 minors, in the West Bank, half of them during Israeli search-and-arrest operations, the UN said.

Video from the West Bank showed Palestinians throwing rocks as Israeli armoured vehicles, while another second clip showed IDF soldiers carrying out an operation.

Meanwhile, Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians remain in the north and would no longer be able to escape if the north-south highway is blocked.

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