Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected a peace offering from Hamas as Israel today deployed troops along the Gaza border in preparation for a possible ground invasion as both sides exchanged relentless bombardments.
More than 600 Israeli air strikes since Monday have levelled Islamist bases and slain nine top commanders including the Hamas intelligence chief, their lead missile designer and their terror boss in Gaza City.
Hamas offered a truce last night via the Russian foreign ministry, requesting ceasefire on a 'mutual basis' after they launched more than 1,600 rockets at densely populated towns and cities, killing seven Israeli civilians.
But Netanyahu has vowed his troops are committed to a long operation which will only 'increase in force' despite international outcry at the growing Palestinian death toll – 83 people have been killed, including 17 children.
Troops were today ordered to the Gaza border in 'various stages of preparing ground operations', a military spokesman said, a move that would recall similar incursions during Israel-Gaza wars in 2014 and 2008-2009.
Meanwhile, Israel is facing an internal crisis with Arab and Jewish mobs running amok through the streets, with 'lynchings' reported and buildings torched across the country during nightly riots since the conflict erupted.
'The campaign is still far from over,' a minister said after a cabinet meeting last night with Netanyahu. 'Whatever we don't do now, we will have to do in six months or a year from now.'
He told Israeli news site Ynet: 'When we have hit all our targets and the other side has still not surrendered, we will launch a ground operation even though we do not seek it.'
Plans for the ground invasion were being drafted for approval by Israeli Defence Force Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi later on Thursday, according to the Jerusalem Post. If they get the General's sign off, the plans will be passed on to Netanyahu and his cabinet.
'This will not end in the next few days,' the cabinet minister added. 'Israel will not stop and has no interest in stopping. It is all moving in the right direction. We will act until they admit that opening fire was a mistake, just as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah did after the Second Lebanon War in 2006.'
As Joe Biden and Boris Johnson made appeals for calm yesterday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a forceful partisan condemnation - saying that Israel needed to be taught a 'lesson.'
He told Russia's Vladimir Putin during a phone call of the need for 'the international community to give Israel a strong and deterrent lesson' as he called on the UN to intervene with a 'determined and clear message.'
The appeals fell on deaf ears this morning as Israel and Hamas exchanged cross-border blows throughout the early hours of Thursday - sending Israelis fleeing into air raid shelters, while Palestinians evacuated their apartments.
Among the high-ranking commanders 'neutralised' in strikes on Wednesday were Brigadier General Bassem Issa, chief of the Gaza City Brigades, and Jamal Zabda, head of the group's rocket unit and responsible for the improved accuracy of their projectiles.
The IDF says it has launched strikes on 650 targets, including militants, infrastructure, missile-launch sites, central banks and administrative buildings key to maintaining power in the Strip.
Brigadier General Hidai Zilberman told reporters early Thursday: 'Tonight we started destroying government targets in the Gaza Strip, such as central banks and internal security buildings. Hamas is beginning to discover cracks and there is pressure in the organization, even among the Gaza public who is losing its patience and sees these ruins on the eve of the holiday (Eid).'
Zilberman said that all options remained on the table and that troops were on standby if there are orders for a ground invasion, they include the Paratroopers Brigade, Golani Infantry Brigade and 7th Armoured Brigade.
Three tower blocks have been levelled in assaults by the Israel Air Force and the Islamists' network of underground tunnels has been decimated by bunker buster bombs.
As well as high-ranking commanders, the IDF say they have killed another 60 Hamas militants.
Funerals for 14 slain Hamas members, including the terror chief Issa, were held at the Omari Grand Mosque in Gaza City on Thursday.
At the same time, in the Israeli settlement of Eliakim, hundreds of family members and comrades attended the funeral of 21-year-old soldier Omer Tabib.
Tabib was killed close to the border with Gaza on Wednesday by an anti-tank missile fired at his jeep.
'Omer, my beautiful child, six years we waited for you and the patience paid off – we received a beautiful child with an eternal smile on his face,' his mother Tali said, according to Haaretz.
'I refuse to believe that instead of a blessing for your [finishing the army], I'm searching for words to summarize the period of your life. I'm sorry, but I don't know how to do it. In my blackest dreams I never thought I'd reach this point. Omer, my beautiful child, give us the strength to know how to continue on.'
The fighting has sparked violent clashes between Arabs and Jews in Israel, in ugly scenes which have not been witnessed for more than 20 years amid fears of a civil war.
Twenty were injured last night as mobs attacked each other in the central city of Lod which has been the epicentre for the troubles despite a curfew imposed earlier this week and a state of emergency declared by Netanyahu.
Israeli police said two people were shot and wounded while an Israeli Jew was stabbed on his way to the synagogue by a Muslim Arab on Thursday morning despite the deployment of additional security forces.
Dozens of people were arrested there and in other towns across Israel where clashes and rioting broke out.
A Jewish man was left in intensive care after being beaten with metal bars and rocks by an Arab gang in the northern city of Acre.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, who celebrated a Ramadan 'iftar' meal just weeks ago, on Wednesday condemned what he termed a 'pogrom' by a 'blood-thirsty Arab mob.'
'The sight of the pogroms in Lod and the disturbances across the country by an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob, injuring people, damaging property and even attacking sacred Jewish spaces is unforgivable,' Rivlin said in an unusually strongly-worded statement on Wednesday.
Netanyahu said that 'what has been happening these last few days in Israeli towns is unacceptable.'
'Nothing justifies the lynching of Arabs by Jews, and nothing justifies the lynching of Jews by Arabs,' he said, adding that Israel was fighting a battle 'on two fronts'.
Netanyahu warned that he was prepared to use an 'iron fist if necessary' to calm the violence.
Yesterday Mr Johnson tweeted a plea for Israel and Hamas to 'step back from the brink' and 'show restraint'.
He added: 'The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties and we want to see an urgent de-escalation of tensions.'
His calls were backed up by similar messages from the EU, the US, Russia and Turkey.
The UN's Middle East peace envoy Tor Wennesland on Wednesday warned the latest violence was 'escalating towards a full-scale war'. And UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said he was 'gravely concerned' by the ongoing troubles.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad fired more than 1,000 missiles in the first 48 hours of the conflict which began on Monday, an average of one every three minutes, and has enough to keep the bombardment going for two months.
Israeli military spokesman Lt Col Jonathan Conricus said: 'According to our estimates we're talking about between 20,000 and 30,000 rockets in Gaza today, rockets and mortars.
'We've seen a constant expansion in terms of range and also in terms of the size of the warheads. They have an advanced arsenal of rockets, I think it's on a par with the fire capabilities of a few small European countries.'
While Israel's Iron Dome aerial defence system has intercepted nine out of ten Palestinian rockets, the remainder have killed at least six civilians and injured more than 90. Families in Tel Aviv spent most of yesterday taking cover in underground shelters.
Israel's retaliation has included hundreds of air strikes on Gaza, led by F-35 stealth bombers and Apache attack helicopters, which are understood to have killed 32 and wounded more than 300.
Israel says most of the dead were terrorists and insists the children killed were victims of stray Palestinian rockets.
The UN security council met yesterday to discuss the crisis. The heaviest offensive between Israel and Hamas since a 2014 war in the Hamas-ruled enclave has increased international concern that the situation could spiral out of control.
Israel's army on Thursday said it had received a rocket warning in the north of the country, the first time the alert has been given there since hostilities soared between Israel and Palestinians earlier this week.
The approximately 1,500 rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas militants since Monday had so far set off warnings in southern and central Israel, but not in the north, the army said.
However in the small hours of Thursday morning, alarms not only sounded in the economic capital Tel Aviv in the middle of the country - where residents rushed to shelters - but also in Jezreel Valley in the north.
There was no immediate word of a rocket strike or casualties in Nahalal, some 62 miles.
Since hostilities escalated on Monday evening, Hamas has fired around 1,500 rockets from Gaza into Israeli territory, according to the latest estimate by Israel's army.
The launch of around 350 rockets had failed, while hundreds more were intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defence system, the army said.
Seven people in Israel have been killed by the onslaught, including a six-year-old and a soldier.
THANKS SO MUCH,, IT MEANS THE WORLD TO US IN THESE DIFFICULT TIME
3 comments:
I have absolutely no idea why they would send in 20 year olds into Gaza to get shot in the back like last time. I think 63 soldiers died for absolutely no reason. They can do everything from the air.
Because these filthy leftist (yes Bibi is a leftist) self hating cowardly Jews are afraid what the U.N or the EU or the demented sewer rat BIDEN would say ,therefore they would rather send in our beautiful young boys to be slaughtered as cannon fodder.Instead of carpet bombing that hell hole and turn it into a parking lot.
If God forbid these monsters in the cabinet decide to sacrifice our young children on the altar of liberalism , the citizens of Israel should rise up as one ,and overthrow these murderous gangsters and hang them from the nearest lamp post ,and yes that would include those so called Rabbis with the long beards and black yarmulkes who are siting in the cabinet
Palestinians especially Gazans are very intelligent + the Arab world adores them.
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