Israel vowed to step up long-range artillery fire and airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza Saturday, as its tanks circled the area’s border ahead of an expected ground attack.
“We have to enter the next phase of the war in the best condition, not according to what anyone tells us,” IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters.
“Starting today, we are stepping up our attacks and minimizing the danger” to Israeli forces who will attack soon.
“We will increase the attack, starting today,” he said.
The increased pace of long-range strikes – a standard way to soften resistance before a ground invasion begins – comes as the US and several European allies urged Israel to halt its military operation in hopes of freeing 210 hostages, including 30 children, who remained in the area for a short time. will again be a battle zone.
A formation of Israeli tanks gather along the Gaza border on Saturday ahead of an expected ground invasion.REUTERS
UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly “called for discipline and professionalism and restraint from the Israeli army,” according to the BBC – saying that an extension of the conflict “is exactly what Hamas wants.”
The US government’s efforts to free the remaining American hostages in the Gaza Strip are intensifying ahead of the expected invasion by Israel, the Washington Post reported.
Two US hostages, Judith and Natalie Raanan from Illinois, were released Friday.
Palestinians in Gaza City mourned after relatives were killed as both Israeli attacks and Hamas rocket fire intensified. Anadolu via Getty Images
How celebrities, schools and businesses responded to Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel
“The hope is that this is seen as an olive branch,” a US diplomat told NBC News.
“We are optimistic that the hostages, especially the civilians, will be released soon,” senior Qatari official Majed Al-Ansari told German newspaper Die Welt — saying that Raanan’s freedom came “within a framework that confirms the positive intention to release the hostages.”
With 10 Americans still missing, US negotiators working with mediators in Qatar fear talks will collapse once the IDF strikes.
Israeli soldiers near the Gaza border prepare tanks for the upcoming battle.Getty Images
President Biden said “yes” when reporters asked him late Friday if the IDF should delay its ground invasion — but the White House sought to dismiss the answer, claiming the 80-year-old president had misheard the question.
But Hamas announced Saturday that it would not discuss the fate of what it called “Israeli military prisoners” until Israel ends its “aggression” – casting doubt on the prospects of the diplomatic effort.
“Our position regarding Israeli military prisoners is clear: it is related to a [possible] prisoner exchange, and we will not discuss it until Israel ends its aggression on Gaza and Palestine,” Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official, told reporters from Lebanon.
IDF infantrymen stand guard near the Gaza fence in the Jewish community of Kibbutz Be’eri, whose residents were attacked by Hamas on October 7. Jim Hollander/UPI/Shutterstock
Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest news on Hamas attacks on Israel
Meanwhile, a 22-year-old American with dual Israeli citizenship was killed Saturday by an anti-tank missile fired from Lebanon, as the Hezbollah terror group claimed responsibility for several rocket and missile attacks on military positions and towns in northern Israel.
Staff Sgt. (res.) Omer Balva, who grew up in Rockville, Maryland, was in the US when Hamas fighters killed more than 1,000 civilians in a shocking October 7 attack.
He returned to Israel last week as the IDF called up more than 360,000 reservists to report.
The first truck carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza refugees crossed the border from Egypt early Saturday. AFP via Getty Images
The IDF responded to Hezbollah attacks with drone strikes in southern Lebanon.
The first trucks carrying international aid entered southern Gaza early Saturday as the Rafah crossing to Egypt was briefly opened, then closed again as Israeli rocket fire continued.
About 20 trucks carrying food, medical supplies, and 44,000 bottles of drinking water arrived to help the thousands of refugees who have fled the northern part of the enclave.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi shakes hands with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Cairo.via REUTERS
The worst attack on Israel in 50 years: How we got here
2005: Israel unilaterally withdraws from the Gaza Strip three decades after winning the territory from Egypt in the Six-Day War.
2006: The terrorist group Hamas wins Palestinian legislative elections.
2007: Hamas takes control of Gaza in a civil war.
2008: Israel launched a military offensive against Gaza after Palestinian terrorists fired rockets into the city of Sderot.
2023: Hamas launches its biggest attack on Israel in 50 years.
More than 1,400 Israelis have been killed, more than 4,200 wounded and at least 100 taken hostage, with the death toll expected to rise after Hamas terrorists fired thousands of rockets and sent dozens of militants into Israeli cities.
Hamas terrorists are seen taking women hostage and parading them through the streets in a gruesome video.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “We are at war” and promised Hamas would pay an “unprecedented price.”
Gaza health officials reported at least 3,000 Palestinians killed and more than 12,500 injured.
Elsewhere in the region:
- An IDF raid on the home of a senior Hamas leader in the West Bank resulted in the arrest of at least 20 of his relatives. Saleh al-Aruri is deputy to Hamas’s top leader Ismail Haniyeh, the Times of Israel reported.
- At least 550 rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad terrorist group – an estimated one-fifth of the total – have missed and killed innocent Palestinian civilians, the IDF said on Saturday, as it released thermal footage showing four failures such Hamas blamed Israel this week for a deadly explosion at a Gaza City hospital caused by an errant terrorist rocket.
- Israeli police have identified 74% of the 1,033 civilians killed in the October 7 Hamas incursion, returning 668 victims’ remains to their families for burial. But progress has been slow, with many bodies burned or badly mutilated.
- The war’s death toll has reached more than 1,400 Israelis and more than 4,300 Palestinians, including 1,756 children, according to the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health. Israel says the Palestinian death toll includes 1,500 terrorists.
Leaders from more than two dozen countries gathered in Cairo, Egypt for a one-day summit to discuss ways to “decrease” the war.
The Cairo Peace Summit included representatives from countries including Jordan, France, Germany, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Qatar and South Africa – but the delegation left the meeting without issuing a final joint statement because of “differences” over the wording of the communique, CNN reported. .
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, the host of the meeting, stressed that his government would not accept an influx of refugees from Gaza — because doing so would “end the country’s dream.”
“The entire Egyptian people will not accept the dissolution of the Palestinian struggle … and it will never happen on the expanses of Egypt,” el-Sissi said.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
