Israel Forces Enter and Stay in Gaza Overnight Amid Heaviest Bombardment Yet

SDEROT, Israel – The IDF entered the Gaza Strip overnight Friday with the heaviest bombardment of the three-week conflict in first stages in a long awaited and feared ground operation against Hamas militants.

Israeli tanks and infantry were backed by artillery and at least 150 airstrikes, that the IDF claimed were targeting the extensive Hamas tunnel network, hit the tiny coastal enclave of 2.2 million Palestinians as communications to the area were cut. The assault began a few hours after nightfall in what appeared to start the most aggressive operation of the war, which began when Hamas and aligned militant groups attacked Israeli towns and settlements killing at least 1400 people and taking more than 200 hostage on Oct. 7. 

"We are using fire that has never been seen before in the Gaza Strip,” said Lt. Col “J", an Israeli officer allowed to speak to the media but only if identified by their first initial. “From the air, from the ground or from the underground—the IDF will eliminate every senior or junior terrorist and every terrorist infrastructure of Hamas."

Previously, the Israeli response was three weeks of bombing that hit thousands of targets, leaving much of Gaza, considered one of the world’s densest urban environments, devastated as food, water, and electricity have been nearly impossible to obtain because of an ongoing blockade by the IDF. According to the Hamas-controlled health ministry, 7,700 people have been killed in Gaza in the conflict, including more than 3,000 children. 

“There’s more bombs than we have ever seen”

Unlike a handful of previous small scale commando raids by IDF troops, which entered the strip for a few hours to hit specific targets before departing, IDF remained inside Gaza on Saturday. Israeli officials confirmed their presence and witnesses in the nearby Israeli town of Sderot told VICE News that IDF tanks were operating inside the strip with periodic bursts of cannon and heavy machine gun fire able to be heard. Israel said there were no IDF casualties. 

While his defense ministry has not described the activity as the start of the sustained ground offensive that Israel has been threatening, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that “this activity will continue until a new order” is issued. In a video posted to X [formerly Twitter], Israel Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari renewed Israel’s warning for people in Gaza to move south during the expanded ground operations.

As the Friday assault began, Israeli officials completely turned off the already unreliable and damaged mobile phone and internet networks, leaving Gaza’s civilian population almost completely cut off from the outside world, drawing alarm and criticism from human rights and aid groups, who said the lack of communications had halted an already difficult relief effort.

A Gaza City resident, who had fled with their family to southern Gaza’s Rafah refugee camp under IDF direction was able to briefly speak to VICE News by using an Egyptian SIM card along the shared border.

“There’s more bombs than we have ever seen, many people have been killed and wounded, but there’s no way for families to call ambulances,” said Mahdi, who VICE is only identifying by his first name for security reasons. “We can hear wounded people screaming for help under the [destroyed] houses. Only the [loudspeakers used to call for prayer times] mosques can give people information.”

With less than 100 trucks of humanitarian aid allowed to enter the strip in the last three weeks–less than one day of shipments of medicine and food under normal conditions–the sheer number of casualties, an estimated 17,000 wounded, as well as a lack of supplies and damage to dozens of medical facilities and hospitals by bombings has made Gaza unlivable for civilians, according to UN and Red Cross officials.

"The humanitarian situation in Gaza is more than catastrophic in the light of 12 hospitals and 32 healthcare centres becoming out of service due to lack of fuel or being bombed," Mey Sayegh, head of International Federation of Red Cross communications, told the Turkish Anadolu news agency on Friday.

On Friday, Gaza health officials released a detailed list with more than 6,000 names of people killed, although specific numbers cannot be confirmed by media or humanitarian organizations. 120 members of the United Nations voted for Jordanian resolution on Friday for a “sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities,” but due to a U.S. veto, the measure cannot pass the UN Security Council.

Although the U.S. has publicly been extremely supportive of Israel’s right to confront Hamas in the wake of the worst attack on the nation’s history, including a proposal for $14 billion in military aid, and two nuclear aircraft carrier group’s parked off the coast of Lebanon as a warning to Hamas’ ally Hezbollah to stay out of the fray, U.S. officials are quietly expressing concern about the effectiveness of the aggressive Israeli approach.

At least 220 Israelis and other foreign nationals are believed held by Hamas and its allies inside Gaza, including American, French, British, Nepalese and Thai citizens, and U.S. officials have pushed Israel to adopt an more careful targeted approach to attacking militants, while continuing a Qatari brokered mediation to release many of the hostages. Hamas claimed on Thursday that at least 50 hostages had already died and blamed the Israeli bombing campaign. 

“We want our Israeli allies to be successful in this operation to defend themselves from the worst attack in their history,” said a U.S. official based in the region, who asked not be named in order to speak candidly about a very sensitive diplomatic issue.

“It’s consulting with our ally, not trying to make demands, but in our extensive experience with anti-terrorist campaigns in urban areas, Mosul [Iraq] and Raqaa [Syria] in the fight against ISIS, we learned many lessons about the effects of brute force compared to carefully targeted operations designed to remove specific forces from the battlespace. There’s concern the current approach will lead to a tough slog by IDF forces with high civilian and military casualties.”

Another concern, said the U.S. official, was the possibility of Hamas’ much more militarily powerful ally, Hezbollah, starting another front of the conflict along the northern border.

“Following the initial report on the activation of a warning in the north of the country, a number of mortars and anti-tank missiles were detected from Lebanese territory towards Israeli territory and towards IDF posts in the Lebanese border area that fell in open areas,” the IDF said Saturday on Telegram. 

“Some restraint and carefully planned operations might help the increasingly dangerous region,” the U.S. diplomat said. “Nobody wants a confrontation with Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed groups in the region, who have already conducted some smaller attacks as a means of pressuring the U.S.”

The border between Israel and Lebanon–established by the UN in 2000 after the end of the 22-year long Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon–has seen near daily exchanges of gun fire, rockets, and anti-tank missiles. On Saturday, IDF officials said that a drone from Lebanon had been intercepted and a Hezbollah anti-aircraft position that fired on an Israeli drone had been destroyed in an airstrike. 

Some Israelis, many who gather across Tel Aviv each night in a vigil for the missing hostages, have indicated they want the government to negotiate for the release of as many civilians as possible but many are cynical about the ultimate utility. 

Sharon Applebaum, a resident of Gaza-adjacent Ashkelon currently sheltering with her husband and two small children in a Tel Aviv hotel, said she agreed with a halt for a prisoner swap that would allow the IDF to later target every member of Hamas.

“We can trade the 200 Israeli hostages for the 6,000 Hamas [prisoners] in our jails,” she said as her children played in a hotel lobby. “They can join the 10 or 20,000 Hamas members in Gaza and we can then kill all of them there. We don’t mind seeing them released if we know we can kill them later.”