GAZA: Zionist ground forces fought deadly battles with Hamas militants inside Gaza on Monday and sent tanks to the outskirts of the biggest city while air strikes kept raining down on the besieged Palestinian territory. The intensifying military campaign since the Oct 7 Hamas attacks has sharply heightened fears for the 2.4 million civilians trapped inside Gaza, where the health ministry says more than 8,300 have died.

Concern has surged about the widening humanitarian crisis and the fate of hospitals in the war zone where, the World Health Organization warns, many patients cannot be safely moved despite the Zionist entity’s evacuation order. Columns of Zionist tanks and armored bulldozers were seen churning through the sand, and Zionist snipers took positions inside emptied residential buildings, in footage released by the army. Dozens of Zionist tanks advanced for more than an hour into the southern fringes of Gaza City

and blocked the main north-south highway, “firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it”, an eyewitness told AFP by phone. Air strikes also cratered the road and brought down buildings, residents said, before the tanks pulled back from the area.

The Zionist land forces were supported by heavy fire from fighter jets, drones and artillery that the army said had struck more than 600 targets within 24 hours, up sharply from 450 a day earlier. Hamas said it had fired anti-tank missiles at two Zionist armored vehicles. It also charged the Zionist entity was trying to present a “false image that its soldiers are present in the Gaza Strip interior, even though blows delivered by the resistance have prevented them”.

Hamas also released a video of what it said were three women hostages, seated against a tile wall, although the time and place of the recording could not be verified. One woman was heard calling in an agitated tone for Zionist Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to Hamas’ proposed exchange of the hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

The more than 230 hostages are believed to be held in a giant network of underground tunnels where Hamas has hid its military infrastructure from Zionist surveillance and air attacks. The Zionist entity’s foreign ministry confirmed the death of one of those missing — German-Zionist Shani Louk, 23, who was captured by Hamas fighters when they stormed a music festival in the desert.

Fear and desperation have spiraled in Gaza, under weeks of siege that have cut off water, food, fuel and other essentials to the long-blockaded territory. The United Nations reported Sunday that civil order was starting to break down after “thousands of people” ransacked its warehouses looking for tinned food, flour, oil and hygiene supplies. Donkey carts were lining up to load water, as safe drinking water has become scarce, in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip.

According to the UN, all 10 hospitals in northern Gaza have received evacuation orders — despite sheltering thousands of patients and about 117,000 of the displaced. Among those being treated are intensive care patients, infants and elderly people on life support systems. The head of the World Health Organization said calls to evacuate Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City were “deeply concerning”.

“We reiterate — it’s impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without endangering their lives,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus wrote on X. Mohamed Al-Talmas, who has taken shelter in Gaza’s biggest hospital Al-Shifa, said “the ground shook” there with intense Zionist raids.

UN chief Antonio Guterres has warned the situation in Gaza is getting “more desperate by the hour” and warned against the “collective punishment” of Palestinians. US President Joe Biden stressed to Netanyahu that, while the Zionist entity has the right to defend itself, it must do so “in a manner consistent with international humanitarian law that prioritizes the protection of civilians”.

Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron earlier “stressed the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support” into Gaza. Limited aid has entered Gaza from Egypt under a US-brokered deal, but its volume, 117 trucks so far, has fallen far short of the hundreds of trucks a day aid agencies say are needed.

Anti-Zionist anger has flared across the region and beyond. Washington has warned the Zionist entity’s enemies — in particular Iran-allied “axis of resistance” groups — not to become more fully involved after a series of attacks across the Middle East. The Zionist army has traded cross-border fire with Hezbollah in Lebanon and struck targets in Syria, including on Monday when it said it was responding to launches “toward (Zionist) territory”.

Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, told AFP that “I am doing my duty to prevent Lebanon from entering the war”. Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank where health officials say about 120 Palestinians have been killed since the Gaza war started. Germany on Monday called on the Zionist entity to protect Palestinians in the West Bank from attacks by “extremist” Zionist settlers. In annexed east Jerusalem on Monday, police said a knife-wielding Palestinian stabbed and seriously wounded a Zionist police officer before the attacker was shot dead.