Israeli armored personnel carriers are seen on the move near the Gaza border on Saturday
Published October 15, 2023
- Israel intended to invade Gaza this weekend but was delayed due to bad weather, which would have limited air support, according to a report
- Troops will be operating under new rules, The New York Times reported, which allow soldiers to make fewer checks before shooting at suspects
- One security adviser to the Israeli government said some are advocating for an 18-month campaign of going door-to-door in Gaza, rooting out Hamas
Israel’s troops have been given more freedom to shoot at potential enemies in Gaza, according to a report, and could be ordered to spend 18 months in the enclave going door-to-door to root out Hamas.
A Hamas officer told The New York Times they intended to ambush the Israeli troops from behind once they entered Gaza, jumping out of hidden tunnels.
Senior Israeli officials told the paper that the ground invasion was due to have begun already, but has been delayed due to bad weather preventing aerial cover.
The delay has given Palestinians living in the densely-populated enclave more time to flee.
Israel Defense Forces said they will only commence ‘significant military operations’ in Gaza once all civilians have evacuated, a spokesperson told CNN.
‘It’s really important that people in Gaza know we’ve been very, very generous with the time. We have given ample warning, more than 25 hours,’ said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus.
‘I cannot stress more than enough to say now is the time for Gazans to leave.
‘Take your belongings, go south. Preserve your life, and do not fall into the trap that Hamas is setting up for you.’
But they have nowhere to go: on Saturday, photos emerged showing Egyptian forces blockading the border crossing into Egypt with concrete slabs.
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SOURCE: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12632165/israel-ground-invasion-gaza-idf-plans.html
RELATED: Gaza conditions a ‘complete catastrophe,’ official warns as Israel prepares for imminent offensive
People at the site of an Israeli rocket attack in Al- Shati refugee camp in the west of Gaza City on October 14.
Published October 15, 2023
Conditions in Gaza have deteriorated into a “complete catastrophe,” according to one official, with serious shortages of clean water and food as tens of thousands of Palestinians attempt to flee crippling airstrikes and an imminent Israeli ground offensive.
Israel’s military said Saturday its forces are readying for the next stages of the war, including “combined and coordinated strikes from the air, sea and land” in response to the unprecedented October 7 terrorist attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls the enclave.
At least 1,300 people were killed during Hamas’ rampage in what US President Joe Biden described as “the worst massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
Further escalation of the long-running conflict now increasingly risks spilling over regionally, prompting the Pentagon to order a second carrier strike group and squadrons of fighter jets to the region as a deterrence to Iran and Iranian proxies, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The clock is ticking for residents fleeing south through the battered streets of Gaza after the Israeli military told civilians to leave northern areas of the densely populated strip.
More than half of Gaza’s 2 million residents live in the northern section that Israel said should evacuate. Many families, some of whom were already internally displaced, are now crammed into an even smaller portion of the 140-square-mile territory.
Civilians packed into cars, taxis, pickup trucks and donkey-pulled carts. Roads were filled with snaking lines of vehicles strapped with suitcases and mattresses. Those without other options walked, carrying what they could.
“We will commence significant military operations only once we see that civilians have left the area,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told CNN early Sunday. “I cannot stress more than enough to say now is the time for Gazans to leave.”
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SOURCE: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/15/middleeast/israel-hamas-gaza-war-sunday-intl-hnk/index.html
RELATED: Israel: No Negotiations over Hostages; We Are Eliminating Hamas
Published October 14, 2023
The Israeli government said Saturday that it would not negotiate with the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas over the release of between 100 and 200 Israeli and international hostages, because it was destroying the organization and not trying to save it.
Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of Israel’s National Security Council, said that the days of negotiating for hostages were over. While Israel was trying to rescue the hostages, it would not hostage prisoner exchanges or stop its military operation in Gaza.
The Times of Israel reported:
National Security Council head Tzachi Hanegbi said on Saturday that there are no active negotiation efforts underway by Israel to repatriate the Israelis and some other foreign nationals kidnapped by Hamas last Saturday, saying “there is no way right now to have a negotiation” with the terror organization.
“Israel will not hold negotiations with an enemy that we have vowed to wipe from the face of the earth,” he said, briefing reporters at the Israel Defense Force’s Tel Aviv headquarters.
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There are thought to be 150-200 hostages being held by Gaza terror groups.
Hanegbi’s remarks angered the families of Israeli hostages, who are already staging protests to demand that the government do everything possible, including negotiating, to secure the release of their loved ones.
