Israeli forces were yesterday readying for a looming Gaza ground invasion aimed at destroying Hamas, the Islamist militant group responsible for the bloodiest attack in the country’s history.
In the eight days since Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,300 Israelis in a surprise onslaught, Israel has responded with a devastating bombing campaign that has claimed more than 2,300 lives in Gaza.
Fear and chaos reigned in the 40km-long strip that is one of the world’s most densely populated areas and where the UN estimated that 1 million have been displaced in the war’s first week. Entire Gaza city blocks lay in ruins and hospitals were overflowing with thousands of wounded in the besieged territory, but there were fears of worse to come.
Photo: AFP
Israel has massed forces outside the long-blockaded enclave of 2.4 million in preparation for what the army has said would be a land, air and sea attack involving a “significant ground operation.”
It has also stationed troops and tanks on its UN-patrolled northern border with Lebanon and closed a 4km-wide zone there to civilians after deadly exchanges of cross-border fire with Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited frontline troops in the south near Gaza on Saturday, wearing a flak jacket.
“Are you ready for what is coming?” he said. “More is coming.”
Israel’s military spokesmen have repeatedly said that the army is ready for a ground operation, but awaiting a “political decision” on the timing.
Special forces have made forays into Gaza and recovered the bodies of some of the 126 confirmed hostages taken by Hamas, the army said without specifying how many.
Israel has warned Palestinians to leave northern Gaza and a steady stream of families in overloaded cars, trucks and donkey carts have since headed south.
Alarm has grown about a wider humanitarian disaster in Gaza where Israel has cut off water, food and power, vowing to maintain the complete siege until all hostages are freed.
“An estimated 1 million people have been displaced in the first seven days” of the war in Gaza, said Juliette Touma, director of communications at the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
“The situation is catastrophic,” said Jumaa Nasser, who traveled from Beit Lahia in northern Gaza with his wife, mother and seven children. “We’ve had no food or sleep. We don’t know what to do. I’ve given my fate up to God.”
Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said that Israel’s actions have gone “beyond the scope of self-defence” and said it must “cease its collective punishment of the people of Gaza.”
The US has deployed a second aircraft carrier to the region in an effort to “deter hostile actions against Israel,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said.
The mood in Israel has swung between collective grief, fury and a strong desire to punish Hamas which Netanyahu has likened to the Islamic State group.
Public outrage has been fueled by images and reports virally shared on social media of youths and families shot, stabbed, burnt and mutilated in the Hamas attack, and by deep fears about the hostages.
Israel has also pushed on with its evacuation of southern towns close to Gaza that were targeted in the Hamas attacks. Packed buses were taking families to hotels in Jerusalem and the Red Sea resort city Eilat.
“It’s hard, I’m crying,” said Helen Afteker, 50, an evacuee from the town of Sderot. “It’s terrifying every time there’s a warning, we have to leave. It’s better for the children.”
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