Israel-Hamas war updates: Israeli ground forces expanding Gaza operations

With the deaths of three journalists in Lebanon yesterday and two Palestinian journalists in the early hours of this morning, at least 53 journalists have been killed since October 7, the majority by Israel.

Here are their names:

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For the latest live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war, follow along here.

You can read about Israel’s “expanded operations” on the ground in the Gaza Strip here, and a breakdown of how different countries voted in a UN General Assembly vote on a resolution calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza here.

We are going to bring our live coverage to an end soon. Here’s a summary of today’s main events:

• Gaza is facing a near-total communications blackout, cutting residents across the besieged Palestinian off from the outside world and each other.
• Several international aid groups – including prominent UN agencies – have said they are unable to reach their teams on the ground.
• Israel has upped its bombardment of the Gaza Strip as its military said it was “expanding” ground operations in Gaza.
• Palestinian officials in Gaza have rejected Israel’s claim that Hamas is operating from Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in the enclave. A former UN special rapporteur tells Al Jazeera that Israel is attempting to “prepare public opinion for the attacks to come”.
• Fighting along the partition between Gaza and Israel has ramped up in at least three locations.
• The UN General Assembly has passed a resolution calling for a humanitarian truce, with the US and Israel leading 14 countries in voting against the measure.

Al Jazeera’s Safwat Kahlout, reporting from the northern Gaza Strip, says people in the Palestinian territory are “panicking” because of the communications blackout and intensifying Israeli bombing.

“The people are very much fearful, and they are very much panicking – unable to communicate with others who have been displaced,” he said.

“They used to call each other following every Israeli air strike. They are very much worried about their [loved ones]. They can’t receive phone calls from people to inform them about accidents or explosions.

“We could see pictures of people carrying others in their arms and going to the hospital because they were not able to communicate with ambulances.”

Protesters, including several members of the Jewish Voice for Peace group, have gathered at the iconic transport hub.

“We’re refusing to allow a genocide to be carried out in our names,” the group said.

Transport authorities said, following the protest, only ticketed passengers were being allowed into the station.

Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), has told Al Jazeera that Israel’s justifications that it is not deliberately targeting civilians are not enough to clear it of accusations that it is violating international law with its strikes on Gaza.

“The issue is not just ‘do you target civilians?’, the issue is also ‘is Israel firing indiscriminately in civilian populated areas?’,” Roth said. “And when you look at these neighbourhoods that have been pummelled, decimated, that’s certainly what it looks like.”

“Even if you’re aiming at a military target, you cannot fire if the consequences to civilians will be disproportionate,” Roth added. “Here, we’ve seen Israel blowing up huge apartment buildings … because of some ostensible Hamas presence.”

“Then if you look at the humanitarian angle, international humanitarian law is absolutely clear that Israel has a duty to allow humanitarian aid.”

Israel’s claim that Hamas is using Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City as its base of operations – rejected by the Palestinian group – aims to “prepare public opinion for the attacks to come”, says Michael Lynk.

“I’m aghast that international political opinion from the West – from Europe and North America – hasn’t turned more decisively against Israel, even before this land invasion,” the former UN special rapporteur in the occupied Palestinian territories told Al Jazeera.

He said the administration of US President Joe Biden is running “interference” on behalf of Israel, pointing to how Biden cast doubt this week on Palestinian death toll figures from the Health Ministry in Gaza.

“The United States itself has relied upon these figures in the past. Certainly, the UN has relied upon these figures, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest these figures aren’t the best possible figures in a war zone and in the middle of a conflict,” Lynk said.

David DesRoches, a professor at the US Department of Defense’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies, said even though Israel has said it is expanding its operations, it still has reasons to delay a full-scale incursion into Gaza.

“I think that there’s a couple of factors in play. The first is it’s just extraordinarily difficult to fight in a densely populated area, and it takes a lot of effort, a lot of firepower, and you lose a lot of soldiers,” he told Al Jazeera.

“So I think that it’s in Israel’s interest to try to hold off and delay that as long as possible to try to isolate … Hamas elements by bombardment, by canalisation, before they move in.

“The second thing, I think, at a strategic level, is that Israel has to show the global community that it has exhausted all diplomatic options for a settlement. And then the final point is the fact that Hamas does hold hostages, and I think that that is a restraint on Israeli action.”

Michael Lynk, the former UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, says that’s the goal of Israel’s decision to cut most methods of communication in the Gaza Strip.

“Cutting off all kinds of communication – including the very effective journalism being done by Al Jazeera inside Gaza – is going to [make] that much harder to be able to do if power is dwindling and there’s no internet or access to the outside world,” Lynk told Al Jazeera.

“Keeping the world blinded on what’s happening I’m sure is one purpose.”

Hamas spokesman Osama Hamdan has said there are “no talks” currently taking place between the group and Israel over a potential ceasefire and prisoner exchange.

“There [were] talks and there [were] political efforts to achieve such an arrangement”, he told Al Jazeera, but there are “no talks” amid the intensified Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

Hamdan said Israeli forces are “moving towards the borders of Gaza from different points”.

“It’s clear that they know they have lost … the narrative issue, so they want to cut Gaza from the world in order to commit their crimes in deep silence,” he said.

“It’s clear they’ve started that [ground invasion], but they’re worried about the consequences, they are worried about what might happen on the ground and they are facing a very strong resistance.”

Save the Children has warned that “children are at heightened risk of loss of life, physical harm, severe emotional distress, and protracted displacement following the announced ‘expanded ground operations’ by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip”.

The group called for an immediate ceasefire.

“This is pure horror for all children and their parents. Across the Gaza Strip, more than one million children are trapped in the middle of an active conflict zone with no safe place to go and no route to safety,” Jason Lee, Save the Children’s country director in the occupied Palestinian territories, said in a statement.

US Congresswoman Ilhan Omar says those “disastrous consequences” include a risk that Washington will be pulled into an expanded regional conflict.

“A ground invasion would make an untenable humanitarian disaster even worse,” Omar said in a statement.

“It would not only put the lives of more and more Palestinian civilians at risk, but also Israelis, the hundreds of hostages held by Hamas, and the hundreds of Americans trapped in Gaza.”

An array of humanitarian groups say they have lost contact with their staff in Gaza, as the bombarded enclave has been plunged into a near-total communications blackout.

The WHO and UNICEF – both UN agencies – said they are unable to communicate with their teams on the ground.

“This siege makes me gravely concerned for their safety and the immediate health risks of vulnerable patients,” WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus posted on X.

Here are some of the other groups that say they can no longer reach their teams on the ground:

• The Palestine Red Crescent Society
• Doctors Without Borders
• Quaker American Friends Service Committee
• UK- and Lebanon-based Medical Aid for Palestinians
• ActionAid UK

Hamas political official Ezzat el-Reshiq has pledged that the Qassam Brigades “and all Palestinian resistance forces” are ready to “thwart incursions”.

In a statement, el-Reshiq said Hamas’s armed wing is fully prepared to confront “aggression with full force”.

“Netanyahu and his defeated army will not be able to achieve any military gains,” he said.

He added that Israel’s intensified bombardment and its “cutting off the phone network and internet” as well as “electricity, water, food, medicine and fuel” is a “full-fledged war crime” aided by the West.

Al Jazeera’s Safwat Kahlout says “clashes” between the Qassam Brigades and Israeli forces are taking place in three locations:

“After a few minutes of a relatively calm situation, now Israeli artillery resumed heavy bombardment across the border line.

“I am standing on the rooftop of my building, and I could see the flashes of Israeli artillery blowing up across the border line. We received a message from the Qassam Brigades that clashes are taking place in three different places and locations across the border line.

“One is east of al-Breij, which is in the central area of the Gaza Strip, and the others … are east of Gaza City and in the north of the Gaza Strip.

“They said the clashes are the most violent in terms of using different kinds of weapons in this exchange of fire.”

Tunisia was one of only two Arab countries, along with Iraq, to not vote in favour of the Jordanian-authored resolution at the UN General Assembly calling for a humanitarian truce in Gaza. Both countries abstained.

A statement from the Tunisian presidency indicated the abstention was because the resolution did not go far enough to support the Palestinian people.

The presidency said that its “position will be to fully stand by the Palestinian people until they recover their entire land”.

Al Jazeera’s live feed from Gaza shows almost complete darkness, with the huge explosions that accompany Israel’s bombs roaring through the besieged enclave intermittently.

Some of the latest attacks have hit next to Gaza City’s Al-Shifa Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital, as well as the Breij refugee camp.

A near-total communication blackout in Gaza means that most of the residents there are unable to reach emergency services, nor are they able to tell the world about what is happening on what is surely a terrifying – and deadly – night for civilians.

As we’ve been watching those horrific scenes come out of Gaza in the last few hours, thousands of people have gathered across Turkey in sporadic protests – the largest one [is] … in front of the Israeli consulate here in the city of Istanbul.

People have been coming in the last few hours as they’re hearing the news. They’re coming out in the streets to show their solidarity, show their anger, to vent [over] what they call their frustration for the inaction of not just their country, but the entire Muslim world.

And these protests have continued throughout Friday.

These protesters standing outside the Israeli consulate [are] chanting slogans in favour of Palestinians, in favour of Gaza, against Israel, and also urging their government to do more. There have been fiery speeches here by various leaders.

It is past midnight here in Istanbul and the number of people and the chants that we’ve been hearing here continue to grow.

The international medical charity Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) says it is “deeply concerned about the situation in Gaza”.

“We are particularly worried for the patients, medical staff and thousands of families taking shelter at Al Shifa hospital and other health facilities,” the group wrote on social media.

“We call for the unequivocal protection of all medical facilities, staff and civilians across the Gaza Strip.”

Israel has said that a Hamas bunker lies underneath al-Shifa Hospital, although Palestinian officials and hospital staff have resolutely denied that. It is the largest hospital in Gaza and among the handful of ones that have not been put out of service due to Israeli shelling.

The US embassy in Lebanon has urged American citizens to leave the country immediately amid continuing confrontations between Hezbollah and Israeli forces.

“The State Department recommends that US citizens in Lebanon leave now, while commercial flights remain available, due to the unpredictable security situation,” the embassy said in a statement.

“You should have a plan of action for crisis situations that does not rely on US government assistance. The best time to leave a country is before a crisis if at all possible.”

There have been growing fears of an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel in Lebanon as the conflict in Gaza intensifies.