Gaza City encircled as Israel splits territory into two

Fire and smoke rises from buildings following Israeli strikes on Gaza City (Abed Khaled/AP)

Gaza lost communications in its third total outage of the Israel-Hamas war, while Israel’s military said it encircled Gaza City and divided the besieged coastal strip into two.

“Today there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters, calling it a “significant stage” in Israel’s war against the Hamas militant group ruling the enclave.