Israeli troops advance past Gaza City outskirts, PM Netanyahu says
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that Israeli forces had pushed further in than the outskirts of Gaza City in their assault on Hamas militants in the northern half of the Gaza Strip.
“We’re at the height of the battle. We’ve had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing,” Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. It gave no further details.The prime minister also said, in a press briefing, that the government had not made any decision about transferring fuel to Gaza, although it is helping with obligatory humanitarian aid like food, fuel and water.”We haven’t made any decision about transferring fuel. I haven’t given any (such) instruction and the war cabinet has not authorised any decision,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Israel is talking to medical agencies about setting up field hospitals in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, where it has told Palestinian civilians to seek refuge while it fights Hamas in the north, an Israeli official said on Thursday.
Colonel Elad Goren of COGAT, an Israeli Defence Ministry agency that liaises with Palestinians on civilian affairs, said the idea was initially to address the general needs of the wounded, potentially moving to more specialised care later.
“Right now, we are talking about field hospitals that would provide the basic medical care required for war trauma,” Goren told Reuters.
“Field hospitals can, potentially, be equipped to provide specialised medical care, given their modular structure, but this would be further down the line. There is also the question of where to find specialised staff,” he said.
Nearly four weeks of Israeli bombardment and blockade of Gaza, in response to an attack on Israel by Hamas on Oct. 7 in which Israel says 1,400 of its citizens were killed, have rendered conditions in Gaza desperate.
