Israel Says IDF, Hamas Engaged in Close Combat, Terror Group Says Soldiers Will Go Back in Bags | Updates

The Israeli military said that Israel Defence Forces (IDF) have encircled Gaza City and are waging close-quarters combat with Hamas signalling that the 2023 Israel-Hamas war and siege of Gaza will be a long and bloody protracted battle.

“Armour forces and infantry, backed by many aircraft, are attacking outposts, command centres, launching positions, and additional terrorist infrastructure used by Hamas. The soldiers are eliminating terrorists in face-to-face battles,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military spokesman, said in a statement.

The Israeli military chief of staff lieutenant general Herzi Halevi said that IDF ground troops have “operated in recent days in Gaza City, surrounding it from several directions” on live television earlier on Thursday.

The so-called military wing of Hamas threatened Israel that Gaza will be a “curse” for Israel and warned that IDF soldiers will go home “in black bags”. “Gaza will be the curse of history for Israel. Expect more of your soldiers to return in black bags,” Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades in an audio address said.

Here Are the Latest Updates from Day 28 of the Israel-Hamas War:

1. Admiral Hagari of the IDF said that the option of ceasefire is not being discussed at all despite increasing international pressure to cease the campaign or at least temporarily pause the fighting with Hamas to allow aid to reach besieged Gazans.
2. Israel says that they have yet to achieve their goal of destroying Hamas and no discussions of ceasefire are taking place until that objective is reached.
3. The Gaza conflict raged for a 28th day on Friday after the October 7 attacks when Hamas militants stormed the border, killing 1,400 people and kidnapping more than 240, according to Israeli officials.
4. Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Palestinian territory and sent in ground troops, with the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza saying 9,061 people have been killed, including 3,760 children.
5. Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah is set to speak for the first time in almost a month and give a speech on the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. The Lebanese population remains divided on the question of the Iran ally entering the war.
6. The Israeli government said that Israel will return Gazans working inside Israel back to the Gaza Strip. “Israel is severing all contact with Gaza. There will be no more Palestinian workers from Gaza. Those workers from Gaza who were in Israel on the day of the outbreak of the war will be returned to Gaza,” the Israeli government said.
7. Before the Israel-Hamas conflict started, Israel had issued work permits to some 18,500 Gazans, according to COGAT, the Israeli defence body responsible for Palestinian civilian affairs.
8. The Egyptian health ministry said 21 wounded Palestinians and “344 foreign nationals, including 72 children” entered Egypt.
9. Gaza’s Hamas government said on Thursday that 195 people had been killed in two days of Israeli strikes on Jabalia refugee camp and also claimed that it has “recorded 195 martyrs, 120 missing under the rubble, and 777 wounded”.
10. A group of UN-mandated human rights experts said that “time is running out to prevent genocide and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”. Israel said it is Hamas-backed propaganda.