{"id":71730,"date":"2025-09-18T16:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T16:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/71730\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T16:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T16:18:09","slug":"phone-and-internet-lines-cut-amid-ground-advance-of-israeli-tanks-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/71730\/","title":{"rendered":"Phone and internet lines cut amid ground advance of Israeli tanks \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israeli tanks<\/a> were seen in two Gaza City<\/a> areas that are gateways to the city centre, residents said on Thursday, while internet and phone lines were cut off across the Gaza Strip, a sign that ground operations were likely to escalate<\/a> imminently. <\/p>\n

Israeli forces control Gaza City\u2019s eastern suburbs and in recent days have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas, from where they would be positioned to advance on central and western areas where most of the population is sheltering.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe disconnection of internet and phone services is a bad omen. It has always been a bad signal something very brutal is going to happen,\u201d said Ismail, who only gave one name. He was using an eSIM to connect his phone, a dangerous method as it requires seeking higher ground to receive a signal.<\/p>\n

At least 79 Palestinians<\/a> have been killed by Israeli strikes or gunfire across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, most in Gaza City, the territory\u2019s health ministry said early afternoon on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\"DisplacedDisplaced Palestinians move southwards on a road in the Nuseirat refugee camp area in the central Gaza Strip following renewed Israeli evacuation orders for Gaza City on September 18th. Photograph: Eyad Baba\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

The Palestinian Telecommunications Company said in a statement that its services had been cut off \u201cdue to the ongoing aggression and the targeting of the main network routes\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Israeli army did not respond to a request for comment on the blackout.<\/p>\n

In its latest statement to media, it said troops were expanding their operations in Gaza City, dismantling what it called \u201cterror infrastructure\u201d and \u201celiminating terrorists\u201d, and continuing to operate in Khan Younis and Rafah in the south. <\/p>\n

Israel says it wants to smash the Palestinian militant group Hamas<\/a> in its strongholds and free the last hostages still being held in Gaza, but its latest major offensive after two years of devastating war has drawn international condemnation.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled Gaza City since Israel announced on August 10th it intended to take control, but a greater number are staying put, either in battered homes among the ruins or in makeshift tent encampments.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0United Nations inquiry finds Israel has committed genocide in GazaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Bassam Al-Qanou, a displaced man sheltering with around 30 family members in a ragged improvised tent camp on the beach, said they had no way to get out, and nowhere to go.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are scared, but what can we do?\u201d he said, adding that the children couldn\u2019t sleep because of fear and the incessant boom of missile strikes from sea, air and ground.<\/p>\n

The military has been dropping leaflets urging residents to flee towards a designated \u201chumanitarian zone\u201d in the south of the territory, but aid agencies say conditions there are dire, with insufficient food, medicine and space and inadequate shelter.<\/p>\n

Four more Palestinians, including a child, have died of malnutrition and starvation in the past 24 hours, the health ministry said, raising deaths from such causes to at least 435 people, including 147 children, since the war started.<\/p>\n

Israel says the extent of hunger in Gaza has been exaggerated.<\/p>\n

The Hamas-run government\u2019s media office said that a total of 3,542 people had been killed across the Gaza Strip from August 11th, the day after Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu announced plans to seize control of the territory, to Wednesday.<\/p>\n

It said 56 per cent of them were killed in Gaza City and the northern part of the enclave, and 44 per cent in the central and southern areas, which it said demonstrated that Israel was trying to depopulate the north whilst not sparing the south.<\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke billows up from Gaza City during an Israeli strike on the besieged Palestinian territory on September 17th. Photograph: Jack guez\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Israel blames Hamas for the continuation of the war, saying the group could end it now if it surrendered, disarmed and disbanded.<\/p>\n

Along the coastal road, an unbroken column of every type of vehicle from carts and beaten-up cars to vans designed to carry goods was moving south, heavily laden with mattresses, gas cylinders and entire families perching on their belongings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are heading to go sleep on the streets towards the beach, like this barefoot, we don\u2019t know where to go,\u201d said Yasser Saleh, speaking as he stood on the edge of a rickety trailer being pulled by a car. <\/p>\n

In Sheikh Radwan, which is north of the city centre and has come under heavy bombardment in recent days, residents said they had seen tanks in the heart of their neighbourhood.<\/p>\n

They also said Israeli forces had detonated four driverless vehicles full of explosives and the blasts had destroyed many houses.<\/p>\n

Similar explosions had rocked Tel Al-Hawa, which is located southeast of the city centre, and residents there also reported seeing tanks in the streets.<\/p>\n

The Israeli army said it does not comment on the deployment of its forces.<\/p>\n

The total Palestinian death toll from the two-year war between Israel and Hamas surpassed 65,000 on Wednesday, according to the Gaza health authorities.<\/p>\n

The war was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7th, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli tanks were seen in two Gaza City areas that are gateways to the city centre, residents said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,3761,69,6,71,6220,3857,11,12,15,16,5,72,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-71730","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-gaza-strip","13":"tag-hamas","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-israel-defence-forces","17":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-palestine","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-world","27":"tag-world-news","28":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}