Based on claims of Hamas' terrorist leadership, the estimated death toll of Israel's war on Hamas has allegedly pushed past 10,000, as of Thursday.
The Palestinian death toll in the Israel-Hamas war has reached 9,061, including an estimated 3,760 children and 2,326 women, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza. In the occupied West Bank, more than 130 Palestinians have been killed in violence and Israeli raids.
More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, most of them in the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that started the fighting, and around 240 hostages were taken from Israel into Gaza by the terrorist group.
If civilians are being killed in Gaza, it is because the terrorists do not permit them to leave and effectively are using them as shields for their terrorist activity, Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman told Newsmax.
"What we can see is when we take out terror operatives, there's an entire spiderweb," Spielman told Wednesday's "National Report." "The network that they built underground was literally built beneath all these buildings, so any compression that happens in those — in that vast tunnel network — affects the buildings overhead.
"But this was all part of Hamas' plan. It was scripted in advance, because we know their civilians really just are there to provide cover for the terror activities."
There are reports of Hamas keeping civilians from fleeing the impending Israeli ground operation and Spielman said the proof is in Hamas' own words.
"The proof is we keep asking the civilians to move, and they keep asking them to stay."
President Joe Biden has said he "no confidence" in the Hamas terrorist death total claims, particularly after the Hamas falsely claimed Israel bombed a Gaza hospital, quickly claiming 500 deaths.
U.S. media picked up on the Hamas terrorist propaganda and House progressives like Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., quickly denounced Israel for the strike, with tears for Palestinians. Once it was reported Hamas actually accidentally bombed the parking lot of the Gaza hospital with actual deaths hundreds less than it claimed, those same progressive Democrats like Tlaib did not condemn Hamas for striking innocent Palestinians.
"Hamas is not allowing those people to go," Spielman added. "It's the same murderous regime that is keeping them there in — God only knows what conditions — not allowing any international aid, not the Red Cross, or anybody else to check on their welfare."
The Gaza Strip's main population center in the north has become the focus of attack for Israel, which has vowed to annihilate the Islamist group's command structure and has told civilians to leave.
"We are at the gates of Gaza City," Israeli military commander Brig. Gen. Itzik Cohen said.
Hamas and allied Islamic Jihad fighters were emerging from tunnels to fire at tanks, then disappearing back into the network, residents said and videos from both groups showed.
"They never stopped bombing Gaza City all night, the house never stopped shaking," said one Palestinian man, asking not to be identified by name. "But in the morning we discover the Israeli forces are still outside the city, in the outskirts and that means the resistance is heavier than they expected."
Aware of the difficulties of fighting in an urban environment, Israeli officers' strategy appears for now to be concentrating large forces in the northern Gaza Strip rather than launching a ground assault on the entire territory.
As international calls for a humanitarian pause in hostilities go unheeded, Palestinians are suffering shortages of food, fuel, drinking water and medicine. Sewage is leaking, some are drinking salt water and the trickle of aid permitted in by Israel is a tiny proportion of what is needed.
Over a third of Gaza's 35 hospitals are not functioning, with many turned into impromptu refugee camps and some rescuers using donkey carts instead of ambulances.
"The situation is beyond catastrophic in the hospitals," said the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians, describing packed corridors and many medics themselves bereaved and homeless.
The head of Israel's armed forces signaled willingness on Thursday to ease its embargo on fuel for Gaza, saying that if hospitals there run out they could be resupplied under supervision.
The United Arab Emirates offered to treat 1,000 children while Turkey offered to take cancer patients.
Though Western nations and the United States in particular have traditionally supported Israel, harrowing images of bodies in the rubble and hellish conditions inside Gaza have triggered appeals for restraint and street protests around the world.
Residents reported mortar fire around Gaza City and said Israeli tanks and bulldozers were sometimes driving over rubble and knocking down structures rather than using regular roads.
Information from Reuters and The Associated Press was used to compile this report.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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