What we can expect next from Israel’s ground offensive in Gaza

Israel has started the “second stage” of the Gaza conflict, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In an attempt to exact revenge for Hamas’s attack on October 7, its military has begun the ground invasion that it has been threatening for weeks. Even though Israel has been bombarding the Gaza Strip for more than three weeks and has carried out ground raids into the enclave, its soldiers are currently penetrating further into the region’s northern region.

What is going on there, and what will happen in Gaza next? We offer the solutions to you.

How does the ground invasion appear?

Israeli tanks arrived at Gaza City’s periphery on Tuesday. A vital route connecting the north and south of the war-torn Palestinian territory was cut off when “dozens” of tanks entered the Zaytun neighbourhood on the southern outskirts of Gaza City, according to witnesses who spoke to the media.

According to media reports, a tank was spotted on Salah al-Din Road, south of Gaza City, adding fuel to the rumours that it was a part of an attack on Gaza City. Palestinians living in the northern portion of the enclave have been instructed to use one of two routes to leave the south in order to avoid Israeli airstrikes. It is three kilometres away from the Gaza fence.

Israeli tanks moved into the Zaytun district, closing a major route that runs through the Gaza Strip from north to south for more than an hour. A resident claimed, “They have closed the Salah al-Din road and are firing at any vehicle that tries to go along it.”

A video that has been making the rounds on social media purportedly showed the tank opening fire on a car on Gaza’s north-south road. The tank fires back at the vehicle after it makes a U-turn. Al-Jazeera cited Palestinian medical sources as stating that the attack claimed the lives of three persons.

Reports also surfaced of violent altercations. According to the publication, smoke could be seen rising over the area where the tanks were supposed to be. Israeli jets bombed a section of the road, creating sizable craters.

But later in the day, the head of the Hamas government office in Gaza, Salama Maarouf, said, the Israeli tanks withdrew from the outskirts of Gaza City.

“There’s absolutely no ground advance inside the residential neighbourhoods in the Gaza Strip. What happened on Salah al-Din Street was the incursion of a few occupation army tanks and a bulldozer,” Maarouf said in a statement.

“These vehicles targeted two civilian cars on Salah al-Din Street and bulldozed the street before the resistance forced them to retreat. There is currently no presence of occupation army vehicles on Salah al-Din Road, and citizen movement has returned to normal on the road,” he added.

Claims of Israel’s military

As part of its prolonged ground operations on Monday, the Israeli military claimed to have killed dozens of Hamas fighters over night, four of whom were well-known operatives.

Additionally, a female Israeli soldier who was abducted on October 7 by Hamas was freed. Israeli special forces entered northern Gaza “based on intelligence,” knowing where she was, and saved her, IDF spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday.

In one instance, an Israeli aircraft piloted by IDF ground forces struck a staging post inside a Hamas building that contained more than twenty militants, according to a statement from the IDF. Additionally, a guided fighter jet attacked the vicinity of Al-Azhar University, where IDF forces claimed to have discovered an anti-tank missile launcher and armed terrorists.

According to CNN, the IDF claims to have hit over 600 “terror targets” in the last two days, including weapons warehouses, numerous anti-tank missile launch sites, and Hamas staging areas and hideouts.

Israeli soldiers can be seen flying the flag of their nation atop a resort hotel in Gaza in a video that was captured on Saturday.