Israel has announced that it would extend its ground operation to Gaza, but Hamas has said it is ready, a top official of the Palestinian Islamist group said late Friday.
“Following the series of strikes of the last days, the ground forces are extending the ground operation tonight,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters after two straight nights of tank incursions into the Gaza Strip.
A top Hamas official said it was “ready” for an Israeli ground invasion.
“If (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu decides to enter Gaza tonight, the resistance is ready,” said Ezzat al-Rishaq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, on Telegram social media.
“The remains of his soldiers will be swallowed up by the land of Gaza.”
Israel’s military said it had increased its strikes “in a very significant way”, as AFP live footage captured intense bombardment of northern Gaza.
Air strike after air strike lit up the night sky as thick black smoke clouded the horizon.
Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said on its Telegram channel it responded with “salvos of rockets”.
Hamas said all internet connections and communications across Gaza had been cut, and accused Israel of taking the measure “to perpetrate massacres with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea”.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said ambulance services had been disrupted.
“We have completely lost contact with the operations room in the Gaza Strip and all our teams operating there,” it said on X, formerly Twitter.
Hamas called on the world to “act immediately” to stop Israel from attacking Gaza.
Israel has heavily bombarded Gaza since Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping over 220 others, according to Israeli officials.
Israel’s military accused Hamas of using hospitals in Gaza as operations centres for directing attacks, an allegation Hamas swiftly denied.
“Hamas wages war from hospitals,” in the territory, Hagari said, and alleged the group was also using fuel stored in these facilities for its operations.
A senior Hamas official said the allegation had “no basis in truth”.
