The Israeli military has said it is expanding ground operations and warned residents of Gaza City to move south.
Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), said late on Friday: “In addition to the attacks that we carried out in recent days, ground forces are expanding their activity this evening.
“The IDF is acting with great force… to achieve the objectives of the war.”
Overnight Israeli fighter jets hit 150 underground targets in the northern Gaza Strip, the IDF said on Saturday.
This included “terror tunnels, underground combat spaces and additional underground infrastructure” and resulted in the deaths of several Hamas members, it added.
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IDF ‘expanding ground operations’
Hamas has said its fighters were clashing with Israeli troops in Gaza’s northeastern town of Beit Hanoun and in the central area of al Bureij.
“The al Qassam brigades and all the Palestinian resistance forces are completely ready to confront (Israel’s) aggression with full force and frustrate its incursions,” Hamas said in a statement early on Saturday.
“Netanyahu and his defeated army will not be able to achieve any military victory.”
The Israeli military also said it has killed the head of Hamas’ aerial wing, who had helped plan the 7 October attack and was responsible for the paragliders who flew across the border.
Image: Explosions in the northern Gaza Strip. Pic: AP
The IDF said troops had used vessels to attack “Hamas military infrastructure”, with support from aircraft, along the coast in the southern Gaza Strip on Thursday night.
Officials released footage of what they said was the raid, but did not go into further details.
The video showed explosions near the sea and soldiers firing their weapons in the dark.
However, Hamas disputed the IDF’s version of events in a statement and said its forces had repelled the raiders, Israeli media reported.
Israeli forces also said they carried out a separate ground raid on the outskirts of Gaza City on Thursday night, as part of a second wave of recent incursions into the territory.
Image: IDF says fighter jets struck targets in the northern Gaza Strip overnight. Pic: IDF
Israel has amassed hundreds of thousands of troops along the border with Gaza ahead of an expected ground offensive.
However, according to Sky News’s military analyst, Sean Bell, any offensive is likely to start with moving tanks and armoured vehicles across the border.
“There are lots of phases military operations go to, to gradually ramp up and de-risk the ultimate invasion,” he said.
“And we’ve seen that over the last few nights – an increase in the bombing campaign, what the IDF calls raids – all of this is testing Hamas’s defences and what threats will face the IDF as they get closer to mounting the offensive.
“The first phase of that is likely to be an armoured push over the border, probably to encircle the city of Gaza.
“But the challenge is the IDF doing an urban battle on foot – clearing Gaza City and worse the tunnels. I think that will be an extremely dangerous undertaking.”
Ground invasion seems imminent – but Israel won’t announce it before it does
An announcement on Friday evening by the military that it would be expanding its raids into the territory followed what appeared to be a significant ramping up of an already unprecedented barrage of airstrikes against the Palestinian enclave during the day.
The night sky over Gaza flashed orange and the boom of explosives impacting could be heard loudly from the Israeli town of Ashkelon, around eight miles away.
The language used by Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the Israel Defence Forces spokesman, to describe what was planned, stopped short of declaring this to be the moment of the full ground invasion.
But Israel is not going to announce such a move before it has begun, hoping to maintain some element of surprise.
Commanders have also said that this war against Hamas would be conducted differently to previous conflicts – though it has not specified how. It makes it hard to predict what will come next.
Israel is under pressure to delay the invasion while more time is given to negotiate the release of more than 220 hostages taken captive by Hamas.
There are also significant concerns about the risk of a widening of the war against Hamas triggering an escalation into a regional conflict.
But the huge military build-up along Israel’s border with Gaza points to a clear intent by political and military leaders to push forward with their plans to invade.
Meanwhile, Ayman Safadi, the foreign minister of Israel’s neighbour Jordan, on Friday accused Israel of “launching a ground war on Gaza”.
“[The] outcome will be a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions for years to come,” he said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
He called on the UN General Assembly to support a resolution, put forward by Jordan on behalf of Arab nations, calling for a humanitarian ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
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Loud explosions heard in Gaza
The resolution by the 193-strong world body was approved on Friday – despite Israel and the US both voting against it and the UK abstaining.
However, it does not force any action on either Israel or Hamas.
Israel accuses Hamas of launching attacks from Gaza hospitals
He claimed the Israeli authorities had “concrete evidence” that hundreds of Hamas fighters who took part in the 7 October terrorist atrocity in southern Israel afterwards “flooded” into Shifa hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip.
Image: Israel has amassed hundreds of thousands of troops and military vehicles at the border with Gaza. File pic: AP
“Right now, terrorists move freely in Shifa hospital and other hospitals in Gaza,” the spokesperson said.
“Hamas’s use of hospitals is systematic… When medical facilities are used for terror purposes, they are liable to lose their protection from attack in accordance with international law.
“The IDF (Israel Defence Forces) will continue making efforts to minimise harm to the civilian population and will continue to act in accordance with international law.”
It was not immediately possible to independently verify the claims.
Another IDF spokesperson, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner, was asked by Sky News if the briefing was to soften the ground for the Israeli military to begin strikes on hospitals.
Image: IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner
Asked if hospitals would no longer be afforded protection under international law, he said: “If these actions continue from hospitals, under certain conditions, hospitals could indeed lose the protections that they are entitled to.
“They (Hamas) have to leave hospitals, they have to let people leave hospitals, they can’t tell them to say and hold them hostage in hospitals.”
However, a doctor from north London, who is currently working in Gaza, claimed the Israeli briefing was an “outlandish excuse” to target hospitals.
Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah said: “At the end of the day, what they need to be reminded of, continuously, by everybody, and press included, is that the targeting of any hospital is a war crime, regardless of what outlandish excuses they might provide.”
Image: Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah
However, Mark Regev, a senior adviser to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said those in Gaza who speak out against Hamas can “face consequences”.
Speaking to Sky News, he said: “If that doctor knows, as we do, that Hamas has built a headquarters in the basement of his hospital, can he say so to Sky?
“Of course, he cannot.”
More than one million have fled their homes
According to Gazaauthorities, more than 7,300 Palestinians have now been killed in waves of airstrikes by Israel in retaliation for a cross-border massacre carried out by Hamas in the south of the country on 7 October.
Officials said the dead include more than 3,000 children and over 1,500 women.
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He also said Israel must allow more aid into Gaza amid a blockade he said is being used to “collectively punish more than two million people”.
Gaza’s sole power station shut down due to lack of fuel days after the start of the war, and Israel has barred all fuel deliveries, saying it believes Hamas would steal them for military purposes.
Internet and mobile phone services have also been cut off in the Gaza Strip, a local telecoms firm and the Red Crescent said.
Donald Trump has criticised Vladimir Putin and suggested a shift in his stance towards the Russian president after a meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy before the Pope’s funeral.
The Ukrainian president said the one-on-one talks could prove to be “historic” after pictures showed him sitting opposite Mr Trump, around two feet apart, in the large marble hall inside St Peter’s Basilica.
The US president said he doubted his Russian counterpart’s willingness to end the war after leaving Rome after the funeral of Pope Francis at the Vatican.
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “there was no reason” for the Russian president “to be shooting missiles into civilian areas, cities and towns, over the last few days”.
Image: The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
He added: “It makes me think that maybe he doesn’t want to stop the war, he’s just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!”
The meeting between the US and Ukrainian leaders was their first face-to-face encounter since a very public row in the Oval Office in February.
Mr Zelenskyy said he had a good meeting with Mr Trump in which they talked about the defence of the Ukrainian people, a full and unconditional ceasefire, and a durable and lasting peace that would prevent the war restarting.
Other images released by the Ukrainian president’s office show Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron were present for part of the talks, which were described as “positive” by the French presidency.
Mr Zelenskyy‘s spokesman said the meeting lasted for around 15 minutes and he and Mr Trump had agreed to hold further discussions later on Saturday.
Image: The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Image: Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy meet in the Basilica
But the US president left Rome for Washington on Air Force One soon after the funeral without any other talks having taken place.
The Ukrainian president’s office said there was no second meeting in Rome because of the tight schedule of both leaders, although he had separate discussions with Mr Starmer and Mr Macron.
The French president said in a post on X “Ukraine is ready for an unconditional ceasefire” and that a so-called coalition of the willing, led by the UK and France, would continue working to achieve a lasting peace.
There was applause from some of the other world leaders in attendance at the Vatican when Mr Zelenskyy walked out of St Peter’s Basilica after stopping in front of the pontiff’s coffin to pay his respects.
Image: Donald Trump and the Ukrainian president met for the first time since their Oval Office row. Pic: Reuters
Sir Tony Brenton, the former British ambassador to Russia, said the event presents diplomatic opportunities, including the “biggest possible meeting” between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
He told Sky News it could mark “an important step” in starting the peace process between Russia and Ukraine.
Professor Father Francesco Giordano told Sky News the meeting is being called “Pope Francis’s miracle” by members of the clergy, adding: “There’s so many things that happened today – it was just overwhelming.”
The bilateral meeting comes after Mr Trump’s peace negotiator Steve Witkoff held talks with Mr Putin at the Kremlin.
They discussed “the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine”, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said.
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On an extraordinary day, remarkable pictures on the margins that capture what may be a turning point for the world.
In a corner of St Peter’s Basilica before the funeral of Pope Francis, the leaders of America and Ukraine sit facing each other in two solitary chairs.
They look like confessor and sinner except we cannot tell which one is which.
In another, the Ukrainian president seems to be remonstrating with the US president. This is their first encounter since their infamous bust-up in the Oval Office.
Image: The two leaders held talks before attending the Pope’s funeral
Other pictures show the moment their French and British counterparts introduced the two men. There is a palpable sense of nervousness in the way the leaders engage.
We do not know what the two presidents said in their brief meeting.
But in the mind of the Ukrainian leader will be the knowledge President Trump has this week said America will reward Russia for its unprovoked brutal invasion of his country, under any peace deal.
Mr Trump has presented Ukraine and Russia with a proposal and ultimatum so one-sided it could have been written in the Kremlin.
Kyiv must surrender the land Russia has taken by force, Crimea forever, the rest at least for now. And it must submit to an act of extortion, a proposed deal that would hand over half its mineral wealth effectively to America.
Image: The world leaders shared a moment before the service
Afterwards, Zelenskyy said it had been a good meeting that could turn out to be historic “if we reach results together”.
They had talked, he said, about the defence of Ukraine, a full and unconditional ceasefire and a durable and lasting peace that will prevent a war restarting.
The Trump peace proposal includes only unspecified security guarantees for Ukraine from countries that do not include the US. It rules out any membership of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s allies are watching closely to see if Mr Trump will apply any pressure on Vladimir Putin, let alone punish him for recent bloody attacks on Ukraine.
Or will he simply walk away if the proposal fails, blaming Ukrainian intransigence, however outrageously, before moving onto a rapprochement with Moscow.
If he does, America’s role as guarantor of international security will be seen effectively as over.
This could be the week we see the world order as we have known it since the end of the Second World War buried, as well as a pope.