Israel launches ‘unprecedented bombardment’ on Hamas as invasion looms

ISRAEL has launched an “unprecedented bombardment” on Hamas and confirmed they are “expanding operations” on the ground.

The strip, which has been cut off from all communication, is reportedly being blitzed relentlessly by air.

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Gaza faces attacks from land, air and sea as Netanyahu‘s forces appear to be prepare for the full scale attack.

Tank fire and “unusual, intense and sustained” military activity was also reported by CNN for the past couple of hours.

Footage shared by Al Jazeera on Twitter appears to show the renewed attacks on Gaza as a journalist cowers from the blast live on air.

And UK defence sources did not deny when asked by The Sun that an Israeli ground strike could be imminent.

Israeli Naval Vessels are reportedly also Shelling the Northern Gaza Strip.

Hamas has claimed that Israel “cut communications and most of the internet” across the Gaza Strip.

And they accused of trying to “massacre [Gaza] with bloody retaliatory strikes from the air, land and sea”.

Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallants today said they expected to launch its invasion of Gaza soon, destroying Hamas’ underground web of tunnels.

Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum claimed the strip had been completely cut off from communication with the rest of the world.

They said: “We don’t know anything about what’s happening in other districts in the territory. We don’t know how many victims there are.

“We only hear the bombing everywhere, but we don’t know anything about the victims, about the situation on the ground,” according to the Times of Gaza.

“Please, if you can hear us, send that message to the world that we are now isolated in Gaza. We don’t have any phone signals. We do not have any internet connections.”

Defence forces have spent almost two weeks at the border, waiting for the green light to wipe out Hamas in what is likely to be a difficult and bloody conflict.

It comes after Israel launched its second “targeted” nighttime raid into besieged Gaza as it prepared for the full-scale ground invasion.

Columns of tanks backed by fighter jets, helicopters and drones smashed through border defences, wiping out Hamas terror targets and infrastructure, the IDF claimed.

And on Wednesday night Israeli tanks stormed into northern Gaza in a well-publicised move, but the reality is the army has been doing smaller raids on a nightly basis that have not been widely spoken about.

Troops have been carrying out what is known in the business as “shaping operations”, in which they prepare for war — taking out enemy communications and ammunition dumps.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu  promised to “extract the full price from those murders”, following Hamas’ brutal invasion on October 7.

Officials are also desperately trying to free some 200 Israeli hostages being held by Hamas inside Gaza.

It’s feared many of the captives are being held in Hamas’ mysterious 311-mile maze of underground tunnels that freed hostage Yocheved Lifshitz described as a “spider web”.

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