Israeli troops briefly enter Gaza; to kill more kids?

NT Bureau, Agencies

Tel Aviv/Gaza Strip: Israeli troops and tanks have carried out a brief yet relatively large overnight ground incursion into Gaza ahead of a widely expected full-scale ground invasion after nearly three weeks of devastating air raids on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

Video of the overnight action issued by the Israeli army on Thursday showed armoured vehicles proceeding through a sandy border zone.

A bulldozer is seen levelling part of a raised bank, tanks fire shells, and explosions are seen near or amid a row of damaged buildings. Some 3,000 children have been killed by Israel since the attacks it launched on Oct. 7, Palestine's UN envoy said Thursday.

"I repeat, 3,000 children, innocent children, angels killed in Gaza during the last three weeks," Riyad Mansour said in an emotional address to an emergency UN General Assembly session on the Israel-Palestine conflict.The war, now in its 20th day, is the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides.

“There have been similar attacks in the past where soldiers crossed into Gaza. What makes this one unusual is that it is the first time that tanks have been involved,” said Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher, reporting from occupied East Jerusalem.

Media bureau chief loses 4 of family in Israeli airstrike

Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief is mourning the loss of his entire immediate family after they were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.

The family of Wael alDahdouh, Al Jazeera’s bureau chief in Gaza, had moved to a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza after Israel’s warning on 13 October to those in the northern half of the territory to leave.

Wael lost his wife and Bisan her mother, 44-yearold Amna, in the Israeli bombing. Wael’s 16-yearold son, Mahmoud; his seven-year-old daughter, Sham; and his grandchild, Adam, were also killed in the attack. Amna was fasting when she was killed.

“They had prepared a meal, but she chose to pray before breaking her fast. The bomb then struck, and everything was gone,” Bisan, who another daughter of Wael Dahdouh, said before breaking into tears, overwhelmed with grief and shock.

"There is no time to mourn, more death is on the way," a family member of Wael warned. “They take revenge on us in our children?” Wael said, kneeling over his son’s bloodied body, still wearing his protective press vest from that day’s work.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on his way out of the hospital, Dahdouh said: “What happened is clear. This is a series of targeted attacks on children, women and civilians. I was just reporting from Yarmouk about such an attack, and the Israeli raids have targeted many areas, including Nuseirat.

According to the health ministry, twenty-one other people were killed in the same airstrike. 

Palestinian envoy urges UN to ‘stop this madness'

Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour delivers an emotional address at the UN General Assembly, urging member states to “stop the killing” in Gaza.