Israel has confirmed that its army has moved to the next stage of attacks on Gaza as part of its crackdown on Hamas, leaving Palestinians of the besieged territory with no aid and disconnected from the rest of the world.
Israeli has been heavily bombarding Gaza, more so than in the previous evenings, and all phone and internet connections seem to be lost in the region, BBC reported.
Israel's army pounded Gaza mercilessly on Saturday following a night of intense shelling that, according to rescuers, damaged hundreds of buildings, three weeks into a war sparked by the worst attack in the nation's history.
Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Israel to "immediately stop" the attacks, while the families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas demanded a government explanation about their fate amid the army's intensified air and artillery strikes.
Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry also released a statement condemning any ground operations by Israeli forces that may threaten the lives of Palestinian civilians.
The health ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Saturday that at least 7,703 people have been killed in the war with Israel that erupted on October 7.
More than 3,500 children are among the dead. The overall figure is the highest number of war fatalities in Gaza since Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory in 2005.
Israel launched its withering bombardment of Gaza after Hamas stormed across the border on October 7, killing 1,400 people, and taking nearly 230 others hostage, according to Israeli officials.
The latest Israeli raids were one of the most intense nights of attacks since the war began and coincided with ground operations.
With tens of thousands of troops massed along the Gaza border ahead of an expected full-blown invasion, Israeli forces had also made limited ground incursions on Wednesday and Thursday nights.
"Hundreds of buildings and houses were completely destroyed and thousands of other homes were damaged," said Gaza Civil Defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
The intense bombardment had "changed the landscape" of northern Gaza, he told AFP.
Elon Musk's remarks, in which he promised satellite connectivity to internationally recognised organisations in the Gaza Strip, prompted Israeli connectivity Minister Shlomo Kari to announce that his office has chosen to cut all ties with Starlink.
On Saturday night, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to 'totally annihilate' Hamas.
The IDF forces, he claimed, had been engaged in combat within the Gaza Strip in an effort to drive out "evil" and "bring back" hostages.
Hamas's armed wing said Saturday it was ready to release the hostages it abducted during its shock attack on October 7 if Israel freed all Palestinians held in its prisons.
"The price to pay for the large number of enemy hostages in our hands is to empty the (Israeli) prisons of all Palestinian prisoners," Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said in a statement broadcast by the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television channel.
"If the enemy wants to close this file of detainees in one go, we are ready for it. If it wants to do it step-by-step, we are ready for that too."
Some 229 hostages are being held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to the Israeli army.
A day before Turkey's secular republic turned 100, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan courted his electoral base by speaking to hundreds of thousands of supporters at one of the biggest pro-Palestinian protests since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
"Israel has been openly committing war crimes for 22 days, but the Western leaders cannot even call on Israel for a ceasefire, let alone react to it," Erdogan told the crowd in Istanbul, who waved Palestinian flags.
"We will tell the whole world that Israel is a war criminal. We are making preparations for this. We will declare Israel a war criminal," he said.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen has said that he has ordered his nation's diplomats to leave Turkey after Istanbul's "harsh statements".
"I reiterate my appeal for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, unconditional release of hostages & delivery of relief at a level corresponding to the dramatic needs of the people in Gaza, where a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in front of our eyes", said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Israel's Defence Minister Yoav Gallant confirms military operations against Hamas have progressed, CNN reported.
"We moved to a new phase in the war,” he said in a statement delivered in Hebrew.
“Tonight, the ground in Gaza shook. We attacked above ground and below ground. We attacked terrorist operatives at all levels, in all places. The instructions to our forces are clear: the operation will continue until a new order is given,” he said.
In a statement issued on Saturday, Saudi Arabia's foreign ministry denounced any ground operations by Israeli soldiers that would endanger the lives of Palestinian people.
"The Kingdom condemns and denounces the ground operations carried out by the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, and warns of the danger of continuing to carry out these blatant and unjustified violations of international law against our brotherly Palestinians," the statement said.
As it intensified, its attack on the Hamas organisation, the Israeli military claimed early on Saturday that it had expanded its operations in the Gaza Strip and infiltrated northern Gaza throughout the course of the previous night.
An estimated 100,000 people participated in London's "National March for Palestine" demonstration, which was organised to protest Israel's ongoing bombing and complete siege of Gaza.
“We are all united to deliver the same message: we want the violence to end. We’re calling for an immediate ceasefire and for necessary humanitarian supplies to be safely delivered to the people of Gaza,” Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said in a post on X.
He said that "until you address the root cause," which is Israel's ongoing military occupation of the country, the violence would not stop.
The demonstrators marched across London while chanting "Free Palestine," carrying placards and waving Palestinian flags before congregating at Downing Street, the official residence and workplace of British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Hundreds of people were arrested when police broke up a large demonstration of mostly Jewish New Yorkers who had taken over the main hall of Grand Central station in protest of Israel's bombardment of Gaza, police and organisers said.
The New York Police Department said at least 200 people had been arrested, while protest organisers put the number at more than 300.
Photos from the scene showed long lines of young people standing in handcuffs and wearing black sweatshirts with the words "Not In Our Name" and "Cease Fire Now" printed in white.
The massive sit-in was called by the group Jewish Voice for Peace-New York City, which said thousands of its members had attended the protest, blocking the main concourse of the city´s central rail station.
Pictures showed the terminal packed with protesters who held up banners reading "Palestinians should be free" and "Mourn the dead, fight like hell for the living."
Organisers called the peaceful sit-in "the largest civil disobedience New York City has seen in 20 years."
Rabbis launched the event by lighting Shabbat candles and reciting the Jewish prayer for the dead, known as the kaddish.
Hundreds of Hamas fighters crossed the Israeli border in vehicles, by air and sea on October 7, killing scores of Israelis. The unprecedented attack caught Israel off guard and exposed serious intelligence failings.
"The army entered the Gaza Strip and extended its operations" with tanks and artillery, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Saturday.
Israeli fighter jets hit 150 "terror tunnels, underground combat spaces and additional underground infrastructure", the army said.
The military also published images purporting to show strikes and its tanks manoeuvring within the Gaza Strip.
Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said it was "confronting an Israeli ground incursion" in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip and east Bureij in the centre.
Israeli warplanes flew overhead on Saturday and regular concussive booms could be heard coming from Gaza, where many buildings lay in ruins, AFP journalists saw.
A thick haze of smoke covered Gaza and southern Israel after the night of heavy bombardment.
"There are a large number of martyrs and a large number of survivors under the rubble, and we cannot reach them," a Gaza civil defence official said.
In a bombed-out street in the Tal al-Hawa neighbourhood, 50-year-old Om Walid Basal said her apartment block had been destroyed by Israel.
"This was our house. We lived here just with our children," she said.
"Why are they bombing us? Why are they destroying our homes?"
The families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas demanded on Saturday an immediate government explanation about their fate after the army intensified strikes on Gaza.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents some 229 people believed abducted by Hamas, said the war cabinet failed to explain to relatives whether the ground operation endangered the captives' well-being.
"The families are worried about the fate of their loved ones and are waiting for an explanation. Every minute feels like eternity," the group said.
On Thursday, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades said "almost 50" hostages had been killed in Israeli bombing raids since October 7. AFP could not immediately verify the figure.
Hamas said all internet connections and communications across Gaza had been cut, accusing Israel of taking the measure "to perpetrate massacres with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea".
Human Rights Watch also warned the near-total telecommunications blackout in Gaza risked providing cover for "mass atrocities".
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the communications outage had disrupted ambulance services.
Lynne Hastings, the UN humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, also stressed on X that "hospitals & humanitarian operations can't continue without communications".
"Israel must immediately stop this madness and end its attacks," Turkish President Erdogan wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday, after the UN General Assembly called for an "immediate humanitarian truce" in Gaza.
The non-binding resolution on Friday received overwhelming support, with 120 votes in favour, 14 against, and 45 abstentions.
It was welcomed by Hamas but harshly criticised by Israel and the United States for failing to mention Hamas, with Israeli ambassador Gilad Erdan calling it an "infamy".
Israel's bombardment has displaced more than 1.4 million people inside the crowded territory, according to the UN, even as supplies of food, water and power to Gaza have been almost completely cut off.
Israel has blocked all deliveries of fuel, saying it would be exploited by Hamas to manufacture weapons and explosives.
"Without a fundamental change, the people of Gaza will face an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said Gazans were "not only dying from bombs and strikes, soon many more will die from the consequences of (the) siege".
A first tranche of aid was allowed in last weekend, but only 74 trucks have crossed since then. The UN says an average of 500 trucks entered Gaza every day before the conflict.
"These few trucks are nothing more than crumbs that will not make a difference," Lazzarini said.
Between the bombardments and the fuel shortages, 12 of Gaza's 35 hospitals have been forced to close, and UNRWA said it has had to "significantly reduce its operations".
Israel's military accused Hamas of using hospitals in Gaza as operations centres for directing attacks, an allegation Hamas denied.
Violence has also risen sharply in the occupied West Bank since the October 7 attacks, with more than 100 Palestinians killed and nearly 2,000 wounded, according to the UN.
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