KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: Israel said Tuesday that its ground forces were battling Hamas fighters deep inside Gaza’s largest city, signaling a major new stage in the month-old conflict, and its leaders foresee controlling the enclave’s security after the war.
The push into Gaza City guarantees that the already staggering death toll will rise further, while comments from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about controlling Gaza’s security for “an indefinite period” pointed to the uncertain endgame of a war that Israel says will be long and difficult.

JEDDAH/GAZA: Up to 900,000 Palestinian civilians remained in northern Gaza and Gaza City on Tuesday surrounded by Israeli tanks and troops preparing for a military onslaught.

Israel urged civilians to flee south and offered a four-hour window to travel, but southern Gaza also came under attack. At least 23 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on the cities of Khan Younis and Rafah.

NEW YORK: Hundreds of protesters, many from the group Jewish Voice for Peace, staged a sit-in on Monday outside New York’s Statue of Liberty, calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Video on social media, including footage posted by the group itself, showed throngs of activists sitting at the base of the statue chanting, “Never again for anyone, never again is now,” echoing a Jewish rallying cry in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

UNITED NATIONS: The “unprecedented” conflict between Sudan’s army and rival paramilitary force now in its seventh month is getting closer to South Sudan and the disputed Abyei region, the UN special envoy for the Horn of Africa warned Monday.

Hanna Serwaa Tetteh pointed to the paramilitary Rapid Support Force’s recent seizures of the airport and oil field in Belila, about 55 kilometers (34 miles) southwest of the capital of Sudan’s West Kordofan State.

WASHINGTON: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that his country will take “overall responsibility” of Gaza’s security for an indefinite period after its war with Hamas ends.
“Israel will, for an indefinite period, will have the overall security responsibility,” he said in a television interview with ABC News broadcast on Monday.
“When we don’t have that security responsibility, what we have is the eruption of Hamas terror on a scale that we couldn’t imagine,” he added.