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Benjamin Netanyahu's update on Israeli troops: Advanced past Gaza City outskirts
Israel-Hamas War: "We are advancing," Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office.
Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country's forces had pushed further in than the outskirts of Gaza City as they continued their assault on Hamas in the northern half of the Gaza Strip.
"We're at the height of the battle. We've had impressive successes and have passed the outskirts of Gaza City. We are advancing," Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office. The Israeli prime minister also said that the government had not made any decision about transferring fuel to Gaza. But Israel is helping with obligatory humanitarian aid like food, fuel and water, he assured.
Read more: Israeli general eyes admitting fuel to Gaza if hospitals run out
"We haven't made any decision about transferring fuel. I haven't given any (such) instruction and the war cabinet has not authorised any decision," he said as per news agency Reuters.
Israeli military chief Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi said, "Our forces are now in the heart of a ground operation in the northern Gaza Strip."
Brigadier General Iddo Mizrahi, chief of Israel's military engineers, said that the troops were in a first stage of opening access routes in Gaza.
"Hamas has learned and prepared itself well," he said.
This comes as as the Palestinian death toll from nearly four weeks of Israeli bombarding on the blockaded enclave rose past 9,000, Gaza health authorities said. The Gaza Strip's main population centre in the north has become the focus of attack for Israel following which a group of UN human rights experts, including the special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, said that "time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza".
“We remain convinced that the Palestinian people are at grave risk of genocide. The time for action is now. Israel's allies also bear responsibility and must act now to prevent its disastrous course of action,” the experts said in a joint statement.
