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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-invasion.html
Israeli Troops Battle into Gaza
(New York Times) Hiba Yazbek - Israeli troops and tanks fought their way deeper into northern Gaza on Tuesday, drawing closer to Gaza City. An Israeli airstrike killed Ibrahim Biari, a Hamas commander who was a key plotter of the Oct. 7 assault on Israel. IDF spokesman Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus said Biari was actively directing attacks against Israeli targets from a "vast underground tunnel complex." "Dozens" of Hamas combatants were killed along with him when the underground complex imploded. Photos, satellite images and videos showed formations of Israeli troops and armored vehicles approaching Gaza City and nearby population centers from the north, east and south. Israeli and Western officials say that Hamas has fighters, command centers and weapons caches both among the civilian centers of the city and in a vast network of underground tunnels and chambers beneath the city. The U.S. has been emphatic in its support for Israel, and has stood apart from much of the world in not criticizing Israel's conduct of the war. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a U.S. Senate committee on Tuesday that a cease-fire in Gaza was off the table for now because that would give Hamas a chance to regroup "and potentially repeat what it did" and "that's not tolerable."