Israel at war: What happened on days 21-22?

The Israel Defense Forces have entered the Gaza Strip and are operating on the ground with support from troops in the air and at sea, Israel's political and military leadership said Saturday night.

"Last night, additional ground forces entered Gaza, marking the beginning of the second stage of the war, whose goal is to destroy the military and political capabilities of Hamas and to bring our kidnapped citizens back," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an evening briefing. 

"We are only at the beginning of the road. The war will be tough and long," the prime minister said. But he stressed, "We are prepared for it. This is our second War of Independence. This is our mission, our purpose in life, and together we will prevail."

Netanyahu said that not only do "the people and the leadership stand behind our soldiers," but also the international community is rooting for Israel. 

"Our partners understand that if Israel doesn't win, they will be next," he said. "Many around the world understand well that Israel is not only fighting its war but a war for all of humanity, a war of humanity against barbarism."

IDF ground troops are expanding their efforts inside Gaza to dismantle the Hamas terrorist infrastructure, IDF Spokesman Daniel Hagari said Friday evening.

Hagari said 310 soldiers have been identified as dead since the Hamas massacre on October 7. So far, only two out of 229 known hostages have been set free. Hamas claimed that 50 hostages had been killed.

“In the last few hours, we have severely increased our attacks in Gaza,” he said during an evening briefing, noting that attacks were taking place from the air, sea and land.

The IDF has been threatening a full ground invasion for more than two weeks, but due to a combination of reasons - some known and some unknown - a full incursion has yet to occur. On Thursday, the IDF sent troops inside Gaza to strike Hamas targets - both on the ground and via the sea. The troops entered and exited the strip in the same evening. There were no injuries.

The IDF invasion of Gaza has begun, you just did not hear about it, or heard about it but could not tell.

In the last couple of days, the IDF initiated three targeted and short incursions into Gaza, before withdrawing each time.

Two of the incursions were by land and a third was by sea by Shayetet 13 naval commandos.

You did not hear about it or it did not register as significant because, tactically speaking, all each incursion did was destroy a limited number of Hamas infrastructure targets and engage a small number of peripheral Gaza fighters.

Essentially, the IDF is turning guerilla warfare tactics on Hamas.

The Israel Police is currently dealing with a rocket debris site in an open area in the Rishon Lezion region, Police said on Friday evening.

Police officers and bomb disposal experts from the Central District began work securing, inspecting, and rocket debris and other potential ordnance in order to eliminate threats to the public.

Magen David Adom said that one foreign worker was moderately wounded from the rocket impact.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday appealed for the monitoring of aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip from Egypt through the Rafah crossing to be "adjusted to allow many more trucks to enter Gaza without delay."

"The humanitarian system in Gaza is facing a total collapse with unimaginable consequences for more than 2 million civilians," Guterres said in a statement.

It is “outrageous” that the UN Gaza ceasefire resolution that the General Assembly is poised to approve doesn’t include a condemnation of Hamas or a clear call to release the 229 people it is holding captive, United States ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield said on Friday.

“Two keywords are missing in the resolution before us. This resolution fails to name the perpetrators of the October 7 terror attack,” Thomas-Greenfield said, as she called out the terror group’s name, "Hamas. Hamas.”

“Another keyword missing in this resolution is hostage,” she said.

“This resolution makes no mention of the innocent people including citizens of many of you here today, who have citizens held hostage by Hamas and other terrorist groups,” she added. 

“These are omissions of evil and they give cover to and they empower Hamas’ brutality. No member state should allow that to happen. We should not let it stand.”

NetStream, a primary internet provider in the Gaza Strip, has ceased providing services, the global internet monitor NetBlocks noted in a post on X on Friday.

“Confirmed: Real-time network data show that NetStream, one of the last remaining internet providers in Gaza, has collapsed days after the operator notified subscribers that service would end due to a severe shortage of fuel supplies,” NetBlocks wrote.

The chart shared by the internet monitor shows network connectivity in “Palestine” began to rapidly deteriorate on October 7, the day Hamas terrorists murdered 1,400 residents of southern Israel and took captive hundreds more.

Israeli security forces restricted young Palestinians from entering Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem for prayers on Friday and deployed in strength across the Old City and beyond to quell any unrest spilling over from the conflict in Gaza.

In the West Bank, Israeli troops killed four Palestinians during raids, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA said. Two of the dead were identified by militant factions as their members.

Large numbers of Israeli police kept guard around Al-Aqsa, a perennial flashpoint and often the scene of clashes, as Palestinians gathered for Friday prayers, Reuters journalists said. At one point they fired teargas.

The Israeli Air Force thwarted an aerial threat in the Red Sea region, the IDF said on Friday.

In response to an aerial threat identified in the Red Sea region Friday morning, Air Force units were deployed and successfully eliminated the targets.

According to the military, no civilians were in danger and the threat never entered Israeli territory.