Ground battles rage in Gaza as communications cut off

Battles were raging in Gaza early on Saturday, as Israel expanded its ground operations and cut communications to the Palestinian territory, three weeks after the deadliest attack in the country's history.

The United Nations warned of a looming "unprecedented avalanche of human suffering" inside the Gaza Strip, following weeks of relentless bombing by Israel, while the General Assembly pushed for an "immediate humanitarian truce".

"We are confronting an Israeli ground incursion in Beit Hanoun (in the northern Gaza Strip) and east Bureij (in the centre) and violent engagements are taking place on the ground," Hamas's armed wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement.

Israeli military spokesman Major Nir Dinar told AFP: "Our troops are operating inside Gaza as they did yesterday."

With tens of thousands of troops massed along the Gaza border ahead of an expected full-blown invasion, Israeli forces also made limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

"Following the series of strikes of the last days, the ground forces are extending the ground operations tonight," military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters Friday.

Israel's military also said it had increased its strikes "in a very significant way", while the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram it responded with "salvos of rockets".

'Why are they bombing us?

AFP live footage late Friday showed air strike after air strike light up the night sky of northern Gaza as thick black smoke clouded the horizon.

In a bombed-out street in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, 50-year-old Om Walid Basal asked why her apartment block had been bombed by Israel.

"This was our house, we lived here just with our children, it was full of children," she said.

"Why are they bombing us? Why are they destroying our homes?"

Israel launched its bombardment of Gaza after Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping over 220 others, according to Israeli officials.

The Hamas-run health ministry said Friday that Israeli strikes on Gaza had now killed 7,326 people, more than 3,000 of them children.

Hamas earlier said it was "ready" for an invasion.

"If (Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu decides to enter Gaza tonight, the resistance is ready," Ezzat al-Rishaq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, said on Telegram.

"The remains of his soldiers will be swallowed up by the land of Gaza."

- Internet cut -

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".