- Live War Israel and Hamas in Gaza
- Questions and Answers Palestinian exodus in Gaza against the clock: keys to the Israeli evacuation order
As Israel inches closer to launching a ground offensive in the Gaza Strip and urges its citizens to move south, it continues its massive airstrikes against the Islamist group Hamas and its soldiers make several limited incursions into Gazan territory. The objective is to locate the more than 100 hostages who were kidnapped in the lethal jihadist attack on October 7.
"We have searched and collected some samples that may contribute to the effort to locate the missing persons," military spokesman Daniel Hagari said of the action near the border in which his infantry troops "killed several terrorists in the area and aborted Hamas cells, including one that had fired anti-tank missiles into Israel."
Just a week ago, Israelis were fighting each other over the judicial reform plan in the biggest internal crisis, the West Bank was simmering, normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel seemed to wait just around the corner, and the Hamas leadership was completing negotiations with Qatar and Egypt over increased economic aid promising calm with Israel. But the massive attack of the Izzedin Al Qassam Brigades against towns, several border bases and a massive music festival that caused 1,400 deaths in Israel dynamited the local, regional and international chessboard. The Israeli offensive is the harshest in the Gaza Strip in recent decades, with more than 1,800 dead, the unprecedented kidnapping of Israelis in Gaza, the record tension between Israel and the Lebanese group Hezbollah since the military confrontation in 2006 that at any moment can explode, demonstrations of protests in Arab countries and the "return" of the US to the region to stage support for its Israeli ally against the Iranian axis.
Under the rain of militia shells against Israel, reaching the Haifa area for the first time and while the massive bombardments that sow panic among Palestinians do not cease, northern Gaza has become a key theater of war. There Israel addressed with leaflets and messages to the inhabitants to leave their homes and head south "in the next 24 hours."
The request, defined by the UN as "impossible" and a new source of the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza, is interpreted as a step to "facilitate" the ground incursion that would begin in that area. Given that the Israeli government raised the goal of "damaging Hamas's military capabilities to 'wiping" its regime, the ground offensive seems inevitable. On Friday night, tens of thousands of troops were preparing for an operation that will mark the third phase of the war following Hamas's surprise attack on Israel and massive aerial retaliation.
"We have asked by all means to the inhabitants in northern Gaza to leave their homes for their safety and protection but Hamas, which is worse than Daesh tells it not to do so and endangers them to be its human shield from its attacks," Hagari protested about a step that seeks to prepare a scenario in which fighting between soldiers and militants takes place in areas without Palestinian civilians.
The main northern area affected would be Gaza City, which has 400,000 inhabitants and which Israel says is the source of much of the projectiles. 40% of the projectiles against Israel are aimed at Ashkelon although yesterday they also reached Tel Aviv.
"The occupation tries to spread and circulate false propaganda through various means, with the aim of creating confusion among citizens and undermining the stability of our internal front," Hamas warned, asking residents to "stand firm in the face of aggression" and not leave their homes.
The UN and various local and international aid agencies warned of the "devastating" consequences of the evacuation of more than one million people in the crisis that Gaza is going through under the blockade of electricity supply and under constant bombardment. "They ask to evacuate their homes to a safe place but there is no safe place in Gaza," said a Palestinian quoted by Al Jazeera, the Qatar channel, near Hamas.
The Israeli military strongly denied Human Rights Watch's accusation that it used the banned white phosphorus in two attacks this week in Gaza and Lebanon.
Although the US has always supported Israel in escalating against militias in Gaza (until at one stage it asked it to seek a truce), this time it is unprecedented support. As was the Hamas attack and Israel's retaliation. After the visit on Thursday of the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who yesterday was in Jordan where he met with the Hashemite monarch Abdallah II and the Palestinian president, Abu Mazen, this Friday it was the turn of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. "This is not the time for neutrality, or false comparisons or giving pretexts to terrorism," he said, promising a military umbrella to Israel against Hamas, which he also compared to Daesh, in a war that is long and hard.