Israel-Gaza updates: IDF says 3,500 'terror targets' hammered in 10 days
"Civil order is breaking down in Gaza," a UNRWA official said.
The temporary cease-fire between Hamas and Israel ended on Dec. 1, and Israel has resumed its bombardment of Gaza.
The end of the cease-fire came after Hamas freed over 100 of the more than 200 people its militants took hostage during the Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. In exchange, Israel released more than 200 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
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What we know about the conflict
The latest outbreak of war between Israel and Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, has passed the four-month mark.
In the Gaza Strip, at least 30,228 people have been killed and 71,377 others have been wounded by Israeli forces since Oct. 7, according to Gaza's Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health.
In Israel, at least 1,200 people have been killed and 6,900 others have been injured by Hamas and other Palestinian militants since Oct. 7, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
There has also been a surge in violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli forces have killed at least 395 people in the territory since Oct. 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The ongoing war began after Hamas-led militants launched an unprecedented incursion into southern Israel from neighboring Gaza via land, sea and air. Scores of people were killed while more than 200 others were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The Israeli military subsequently launched retaliatory airstrikes followed by a ground invasion of Gaza, a 140-square-mile territory where more than 2 million Palestinians have lived under a blockade imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt since Hamas came to power in 2007. Gaza, unlike Israel, has no air raid sirens or bomb shelters.
All telecommunications knocked out in Gaza
As Israel steps up its bombing campaign again, all telecommunications have been knocked out in the Gaza Strip, according to the Palestine Telecommunications Company, or Paltel.
"We regret to announce that all telecom services in Gaza Strip have been lost due to the cut off of main fiber routes. Gaza is blacked out again," Paltel said.
Israeli defense minister expects at least 2 more months of war at this intensity
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told ABC News this weekend that he predicts the war in its current intensity will last at least another two months.
After that, Gallant thinks Israel will be fighting in Gaza for multiple months doing mop-up operations and "taking out pockets of terrorist resistance."
Gallant said the only way Israel would consider resuming any negotiation talks with Hamas is if "Hamas fulfills the original agreement and returns the 15 women and two children it is still holding" hostage, with no preconditions and nothing in return.
Gallant said he's committed to bringing home the rest of the more than 100 people who remain hostage in Gaza.
He added, "The only way with Hamas is to use force. Eventually they will give you something. … Hamas has two options: to die in the tunnels or on the surface, or surrender with no conditions.”
Gallant said Israel's goals for the war are to kill Hamas’ Gaza leader and Oct. 7 architect Yehye Sinwar, "break [Hamas'] chain of command" and ensure Hamas will “no longer function as a military organization that can launch organized attacks against Israel."
-ABC News' Matt Gutman
6 mothers of premature babies to be evacuated from Gaza to Egypt
Six Palestinian mothers of premature babies evacuated from the Gaza Strip last month were due to leave the war-torn territory on Monday for Egypt, where their young children remain hospitalized, Palestinian authorities said.
The Palestinian border authority published a list of mothers approved to leave Gaza on Monday via the Egptian-controlled Rafah border crossing and asked them to head there.
Last month, 28 babies born prematurely in Gaza City's besieged Al-Shifa Hospital were transported to Egypt after their incubators shut down amid a collapse of medical services during Israel’s bombardment. Five of the mothers traveled with their children to Egypt, but Egyptian officials said at the time that the status and whereabouts of the other parents were not known.
-ABC News' Ayat Al-Tawy and Morgan Winsor
Journalists witness one of the heaviest bombardments of Gaza since war began
Journalists on the ground in southern Israel witnessed an incredibly heavy and constant barrage of artillery fire and airstrikes in the neighboring Gaza Strip on Monday afternoon.
From their position in the southwestern Israeli city of Sderot, which overlooks Gaza, the ABC News team could feel nearby residential buildings shake when the heaviest strikes occurred. Loud bangs were also heard overhead as a barrage of militant rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel and intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system.
Other journalists who have been living in Sderot since the war began almost two months ago told ABC News that the Israeli bombardment in Gaza on Monday was one of the heaviest they have heard or seen there thus far. Monday's strikes were far more intense than at the same time on Sunday and Saturday.
The heavy bombardment coincides with the Israeli military's announcement that its ground forces are now operating in all areas of Gaza and that it is "pursuing Hamas," the Palestinian militant group that rules the strip, in both the north and south.
-ABC News' Tom Soufi Burridge
IDF says 450 targets struck in Gaza over past day amid 'extensive battles with terrorists'
The Israel Defense Forces said Friday morning that it has struck approximately 450 targets in the Gaza Strip over the past day from the air, sea and ground amid "extensive battles with terrorists."
"The troops continue to operate to locate and destroy underground tunnel shafts, weapons, and additional terror infrastructure," the IDF said in a statement.
During operations in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Yunis, Israeli ground troops directed fighter jets "to kill numerous terrorists in a two-hour series of precise strikes," according to the IDF.
Overnight, Israeli warships "used precise ammunition to strike dozens of terror infrastructure sites used by the Hamas naval forces in the central and southern Gaza Strip," the IDF said.
-ABC News' Dana Savir and Morgan Winsor