Israel's defense minister said Friday that it expects to launch a ground offensive into Gaza soon that will be long and difficult, and aim to destroy a vast network of tunnels used by the territory's militant Hamas rulers.
Yoav Gallant spoke to a small group of foreign reporters after Israeli forces backed by fighter jets and drones carried out a second ground raid into Gaza in as many days, striking the outskirts of Gaza City.He said the ground invasion would include large forces, backed by airstrikes, and "will take a long time," without elaborating. He said it would be followed by a third phase of lower-intensity fighting, as Israel destroys "pockets of resistance.
Hospitals have been scrounging for fuel to run emergency generators that power incubators and other life-saving equipment after Israel cut off all fuel deliveries to Gaza at the start of the war, forcing its only power plant to shut down. Only a trickle of food and medicine have been allowed in since the war began.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which provides basic services to hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza, said it has been forced to ration fuel among lifesaving machines in hospitals, bakeries, and desalinisation plants, and only has enough for a few more days. The damage to Gaza from nearly three weeks of bombardment showed in satellite photos of several locations taken before the war and again in recent days.
Iran-backed fighters later fired rockets at an oil facility housing U.S. troops in eastern Syria, according to Syrian opposition activists. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the U.S. strikes had wounded seven Iran-backed Iraqi fighters. Last week, a U.S. Navy destroyer in the northern Red Sea shot down three cruise missiles and several drones launched toward Israel by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in northern Yemen.
Israeli forces conducted another ground raid in Gaza in advance of an expected invasion of the Hamas-ruled territory. U.S. warplanes, meanwhile, struck targets in eastern Syria after attacks on U.S. forces by Iran-backed fighters, adding to regional tensions fuelled by the 3-week-old Gaza war.
'1989 ,' out Friday, takes that version of Swift -- then in her mid-20s, living in New York, prepared to take on the world with an arsenal of '80s synth sounds and a new producer named Jack Antonoff -- and includes five unreleased "vault" tracks that deliver more clues about the artist she was then.
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