KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — The Israeli army severed northern Gaza from the rest of the besieged territory and pounded it with airstrikes Monday, preparing for expected ground battles with Hamas militants in Gaza’s largest city and an even bloodier phase of the month-old war.
Already, the Palestinian death toll surpassed 10,000, Hamas officials claimed Monday. They do not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Some 1,400 Israelis have died, mostly civilians killed in the Oct. 7 incursion by Hamas that started the war.
The war has quickly become the deadliest Israeli-Palestinian violence since Israel’s establishment 75 years ago, with no end in sight as Israel vows to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities.
Casualties are likely to rise sharply as the war turns to close urban combat. Troops are expected to enter Gaza City soon, Israeli media reported, and Palestinian militants who have had years to prepare are likely to fight street by street, launching ambushes from a vast network of tunnels.
“We’re closing in on them,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman. “We’ve completed our encirclement, separating Hamas strongholds in the north from the south.”
Around 70% of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have fled their homes since the war began. Food, medicine, fuel and water are running low, and U.N.-run schools-turned-shelters are beyond capacity. Many people are sleeping on the streets outside.
Mobile phone and internet service went down overnight, the third territory-wide outage since the start of the war, but was gradually restored on Monday.
U.S. President Joe Biden raised the need for humanitarian pauses directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on a call, but there was no agreement reached, the White House said.
So far, Israel has rejected Biden administration suggestions for a pause, aimed at facilitating humanitarian aid deliveries and the release of some of the estimated 240 hostages seized by Hamas in its raid. Israel has also dismissed calls for a broader cease-fire from Arab countries.
After days of intense diplomacy around the Middle East, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his tour of the region Monday. He said efforts to secure a pause, negotiate the hostages’ release and plan for a post-Hamas Gaza were still “a work in progress” without pointing to any concrete achievements.
The war has also stoked wider tensions, with Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group trading fire along the border. In another sign of growing unrest, a Palestinian man stabbed two members of Israel’s Border Police in east Jerusalem before being shot dead, according to police and an AP reporter at the scene. Police said one of the officers, a 20-year-old woman, was later pronounced dead.
In the West Bank, Israeli forces shot to death four Palestinian men in a vehicle in the city of Tulkarem, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. The military said two of the men were high-ranking militants.
In northern Gaza, a Jordanian military cargo plane air-dropped medical aid to a field hospital, King Abdullah II said early Monday. It appeared to be the first such airdrop of the war, raising the possibility of another avenue for aid delivery besides Egypt’s Rafah crossing.
Over 450 trucks carrying aid have been allowed to enter Gaza from Egypt since Oct. 21.
Some 800,000 people have heeded Israeli military orders to flee to southern Gaza. But continued Israeli strikes in central and southern Gaza — the purported safe zone — killed dozens of people on Sunday.
The Israeli army said 30 Israeli troops have been killed since the ground offensive began over a week ago. Hamas and other militants have continued firing rockets into Israel, disrupting daily life even as most are intercepted or fall in open areas. Tens of thousands of Israelis have evacuated from communities near the volatile borders with Gaza and Lebanon.
