Israel-Gaza war: New Hamas video purportedly shows militants targeting tank – as IDF says its troops ‘at gates of Gaza City’
Hamas has released footage purportedly showing its fighters clashing with Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian militants can be seen apparently climbing out of an underground tunnel and firing what appears to be grenade launchers, as Israel‘s days-long ground offensive continues deeper into the territory in its attempt to “wipe out” Hamas.
An Israeli tank seems to be hit in the attack and then explodes in a ball of fire.
It comes as a senior Hamas official called for the “annihilation” of Israel, and the Israeli military said its forces were at the “gates of Gaza City”.
UN warns of ‘unbearable human tragedy’ in Gaza – live updates
Hamas fighters are apparently shown climbing out of tunnels with their weapons. Pic: Hamas
A Hamas fighter aiming what appears to be a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Pic: Hamas
The tank attack is thought to be captured from a militant’s headcam or bodycam video.
Elsewhere in the footage, a Hamas fighter fires what seems to be a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) at an unidentified target in a forest.
Sky News has been unable to verify the locations and date of the footage, but Hamas claims it was filmed east of Zeitoun in northern Gaza.
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) says 16 of its soldiers have been killed in the ground operation in Gaza across Tuesday and Wednesday this week.
Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit leader killed, says Israel
Meanwhile, the IDF’s Brigadier General Itzik Cohen, commander of the 162nd armoured division, said his troops were deep in Gaza.
“We are located at the gates of Gaza City,” he told reporters.
Brig. Gen. Cohen added that over the past five days “we have destroyed much of Hamas’s capabilities, attacked its strategic facilities, all of its array of explosives, its underground tunnels and other facilities we completely destroyed”.
But he also cautioned it was a “long task” and there was still much work to do.
The IDF also said one of its airstrikes on Wednesday killed Muhammad A’sar, who it claimed was the head of Hamas’s anti-tank missile unit in Gaza.
According to the military, A’sar was “responsible for all of Hamas’s anti-tank missile units throughout the Gaza Strip, commanded the units in routine times, and assisted their activity in emergencies”.
Hamas threatens further attacks
Earlier, Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, from the group’s political bureau, told Lebanese TV Israel’s “occupation must come to an end. I am talking about all the Palestinian lands”.
Asked by the interviewer: “Does that mean the annihilation of Israel?”, he replied: “Yes of course.”
He said “we are the victims” and vowed that the group would carry out more attacks like it did on 7 October, when militants stormed the Israel border and killed more than 1,400 Israelis in what Hamas called the “Al Aqsa Flood”. Hamas also took more than 200 hostages during the raids.
Mr Hamad said: “The Al Aqsa Flood is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve, and the capabilities to fight.”
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says at least 8,796 Palestinians in the narrow coastal enclave, including 3,648 children, have been killed by Israeli strikes since the 7 October attack.
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IDF footage from Gaza ground operation
Second day of strikes on refugee camp reported
On Wednesday, the Hamas-run government said Israeli airstrikes hit apartment buildings in the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza City for a second day in a row, causing many deaths and injuries.
The previous day, Palestinian health officials said an Israeli airstrike killed about 50 people and wounded 150 there.
Israel said it killed Hamas commander Ibrahim Biari in Tuesday’s attack, who reportedly was a key planner in the 7 October massacre.
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‘Dozens killed’ in Israeli attack
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Hamas’s military infrastructure, including hundreds of miles of underground tunnels, is concentrated in Gaza City, according to Israeli officials.
There was no immediate confirmation on possible casualties from the second explosion, but footage showed smoke billowing above the camp and people sifting through piles of rubble and carrying away the injured.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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