Israel steps up air, ground strikes amid international calls for aid in Gaza

Israel has stepped up its fierce air and artillery strikes on the besieged Gaza Strip and pressed ahead with a ground assault that prompted more international calls for civilians to be protected and a ceasefire.

Witnesses said Israeli tanks entered the edge of Gaza City and were seen in the Zaytun district on Monday morning, adding that they cut a key road from the north to the south of the besieged strip.

“They have cut the Salahedin road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it,” a resident said.

Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari told reporters on Monday that Israel was "gradually moving ahead according to plan" in Gaza, but declined to confirm the location of the Israeli forces.

Israel on Friday announced the expansion of its ground raids in Gaza as part of its aggression that began earlier this month.

The Israeli military on Monday said it had struck over 600 targets of the Palestinian resistance over the past few days as it continued to expand ground raids in Gaza, killing dozens of fighters “who barricaded themselves in buildings and tunnels, and attempted to attack the troops."

Israeli airstrikes also continued unabated on Monday, targeting areas near Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals in Gaza.

That came as the Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday it had received warnings from the Israeli regime to immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital, where nearly 14,000 people have sought shelter.

Israel claims that Hamas’ command centers and other military infrastructure are located in Gaza hospitals, an allegation the resistance movement has categorically dismissed.

Despite Israeli orders to evacuate the facility, the hospital administration says it is impossible to do so as most of the patients are elderly and have disabilities.

Media reports said clashes also took place between Palestinian resistance fighters and Israeli forces in an area near the fence separating Gaza from Occupied Palestine, east of the city of Khan Younis on Monday.

The intensified strikes came despite international calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

On Friday, the 193-member UN General Assembly approved a nonbinding resolution that calls for an immediate humanitarian truce.

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Canadians stage a protest in Toronto to demand an end to the Israeli genocide of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip, denouncing the Western support for Tel Aviv.

Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime's decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.

Tel Aviv has also blocked water, food, and electricity to Gaza, plunging the coastal strip into a humanitarian crisis.

The regime has further ordered 1.1 million people in the north of Gaza to evacuate and move south of the coastal sliver. However, it has continued to rain down bombs on the south.

8,306 Palestinians killed including 3,457 children in Israeli strikes on Gaza since October 7, the health ministry in Gaza said.

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