Israeli soldiers fight to reach Hamas’s headquarters

ISRAEL’S GROUNDIDFIDF offensive is entering a dangerous new stage, ten days after it began. On November 5th the Israel Defence Forces () unleashed a series of devastating air strikes in and around Gaza city. The goal was to damage Hamas’s tunnel networks; now Israeli troops are advancing into the city centre where they believe is located. Israel has simultaneously been blocking Gaza’s telephone networks and imposing a communications blackout on the enclave. Armoured columns, operating to the north and south of the city, have cut it off from the rest of the Gaza Strip.Having isolated it, Israel’s forces are deep into Gaza city, far farther than in the ground campaigns of 2009 and 2014. Back then their objectives were more limited: to destroy a number of Hamas’s tunnels and its rocket-launchers. This time the stated goal is the destruction of Hamas, in particular its leadership which Israeli intelligence believes to be holed up under the al-Shifa hospital (Israel claims it has evidence that Hamas is using other hospitals in the city as cover too; Hamas says this is a “false narrative”). But to get to these headquarters, the must first get through Hamas’s defensive lines.