OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said Tuesday it had captured Gaza’s parliament building and other government institutions run by Hamas in Gaza City, as its forces deepened their offensive in the Palestinian territory.

Military units “took over the Hamas parliament, the government building, the Hamas police headquarters and an engineering faculty that served as an institute for the production and development of weapons,” the army said in a statement.

The statement said “government institutions of the terrorist organisation Hamas” had been used for “military purposes” including “for training in preparation for the attack on Israel” on October 7.

The assault killed some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, and saw about 240 hostages taken, according to Israeli officials, in the worst attack the nation has suffered since its founding in 1948.

In response, Israel has heavily bombed and invaded the densely populated Gaza Strip where the Hamas government says more than 11,200 people, also mostly civilians, have been killed.

Hamas dismissed the Israeli army’s announcement that it had taken over institutions.

The move was a “pathetic attempt to manufacture victory and imaginary control of empty places or those previously targeted and destroyed,” Bassem Naim, a senior Hamas official, said in a statement.