With Gaza under a total communications outage, it is difficult to confirm the Israeli army’s announcement.

Israel’s military has claimed it has encircled Gaza City and divided the besieged coastal strip into two, as Gaza came under its third total communications outage since the start of the war.

“Today, there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters on Sunday, calling it a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against Hamas.

Israeli media reported that troops are expected to enter Gaza City within 48 hours. Strong explosions were seen in northern Gaza after nightfall.

But the “collapse in connectivity” across Gaza reported by internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.org and confirmed by the Palestinian telecom company Paltel made it even more complicated to convey details of the new stage of the military offensive.

  • @dx1English
    5•1 year ago

    Ben-Gvir, a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, has faced charges of hate speech against Arabs and was known to have a portrait in his living room of Israeli-American terrorist Baruch Goldstein, who massacred 29 Palestinian Muslim worshipers and wounded 125 others in Hebron, in the 1994 Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. He removed the portrait after he entered politics.[5] He was also previously convicted of supporting a terrorist group known as Kach, which espoused Kahanism, an extremist religious Zionist ideology.[6]

    Under his leadership, the Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power), a party which espouses Kahanism and anti-Arabism, won six seats in the 2022 Israeli legislative election, and is represented in what has been called the most right-wing and hardline government in Israel’s history.[7][8][9][10] He has called for the expulsion of Arab citizens of Israel who are not loyal to Israel.[10] Ben Gvir is “widely known for his openly racist, anti-Arab views and activities”.[11] Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz has said Ben Gvir represents “Jewish fascism”.[12]

    […] In the 1990s, he was active in protests against the Oslo Accords. In 1995, Ben-Gvir came to public attention for the first time, when he appeared on television brandishing a Cadillac hood ornament that had been stolen from Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s car, and declared: “We got to his car, and we’ll get to him too.” Several weeks later, Rabin was assassinated by right-wing extremist Yigal Amir.[14][24]