“This night was the worst of all”: relatives of captured Israelis demand a meeting with Netanyahu after the heaviest shelling of the Gaza Strip since the start of the war

Residents of the Gaza Strip reported the heaviest Israeli bombing since the war began on October 7. This was reported by Haaretz. It is not yet known how many people were killed or injured in these attacks. Relatives of those captured are demanding a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

On Friday evening, the Israel Defense Forces announced it was "expanding ground operations" in the Gaza Strip. On Saturday morning, the military reported the killing of Hamas air operations chief Abu Raqabe, who led the militants who infiltrated Israel on October 7 by paragliders and was also responsible for drone attacks on IDF posts. In addition, the Israel Defense Forces said that last night its air force carried out strikes on 150 underground facilities belonging to militants, reports . The Times of Israel

Hamas representatives said that as a result of the attacks in the Gaza Strip, cellular communications and the Internet were lost, writes Al Arabiya . According to the militants, this was done "to carry out massacres through bloody retaliatory strikes from air, land and sea." One of the leading Palestinian telecom operators, Paltel, announced the shutdown of all telecommunications services in the enclave. Independent Internet monitoring experts speaking to CNN called it the worst communications outage since the start of the war and expressed fears that it could last for several days.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said emergency services were disrupted in the Gaza Strip. “We have completely lost contact with the operational headquarters in the Gaza Strip and all our teams working there. “We are deeply concerned about the ability of our teams to continue to provide emergency medical care, especially as this failure affects the central emergency number “101” and makes it difficult for ambulances to reach the wounded and injured,” the organization said in a message on the social network X.

As bombing intensified, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution introduced by Jordan calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Israel and demanding the release of the hostages. 120 countries voted in favor, including Russia, Turkey and the UAE. “Against” are 14 states, including Israel itself, the USA, Austria and the Czech Republic. Another 45 countries abstained. Hamas supported the adoption of the resolution, and Israeli Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called last Friday, when the document was adopted, “a dark day for the UN and humanity.”

Relatives of the hostages in the Gaza Strip have appealed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant demanding an immediate meeting with them. The statement, quoted by Haaretz, said last night was the worst night for the families of the hostages. “It is alarming, disappointing and extremely angry that no one from the War Cabinet bothered to meet with the families of the abductees to explain one thing to them - whether the ground operation jeopardizes the safety of the 229 abductees in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

“The families are concerned about the fate of their loved ones and are waiting for an explanation. Every minute that passes seems like an eternity. We demand that Defense Minister Yoav Galant and members of the military cabinet meet with us this morning,” the hostages’ relatives wrote.

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