The Israel Defense Forces are taking an expansive approach to their intense bombardment of the Gaza Strip, with military planners erring on the side of striking Hamas even in areas dense with civilians.
“We are attacking very aggressively any place which Hamas and its people are using,” IDF Air Force chief Brig. Gen. Omer Tishler told the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday. “There is always a military target, but we are not being surgical.”
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Those searching strikes reflect an Israeli consensus that the military operation must end with the total destruction of the terrorist Hamas organization that killed more than 1,200 Israelis in a shocking cross-border raid on Saturday. Hamas commander Mohammed Deif is a special target, but he is far from the only terrorist in Israeli cross-hairs.
“In any area that we know there are Hamas members, Hamas leaders, even if there are restrictions, we strike … accurately and with great power,” IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi told military reservists, according to the Times of Israel.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza officials, but Egypt reportedly has rejected the idea of humanitarian corridors out of fear it would undermine “the right of Palestinians to hold on to their cause and their land,” an Egyptian security source was quoted as telling Reuters.
“Egypt was keen to open the Rafah crossing to provide humanitarian aid, food, and medicine, but instability and the expansion of the conflict leads to more hardship and more refugees to safe areas, including Europe,” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said.
The United Nations announced that nine staffers who worked for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees have been “killed in airstrikes” since the bombardment began.
“The protection of civilians is paramount, including in times of conflict,” agency communications director Juliette Touma said Wednesday. “They should be protected in accordance with the laws of war.”
International monitors are “collecting and preserving evidence of war crimes committed by all sides,” according to the U.N. Human Rights Office.
“Taking civilian hostages and using civilians as human shields are war crimes,” the U.N. human rights agency said Monday. “The commission is gravely concerned with Israel’s latest attack on Gaza and Israel’s announcement of a complete siege on Gaza involving the withholding of water, food, electricity, and fuel which will undoubtfully cost civilian lives and constitutes collective punishment.”
Israeli officials are scrambling to re-seal their border with the Gaza Strip after Hamas terrorists broke through the border fence in multiple sectors in their rampage across Jewish communities. And Egyptian officials are wary of allowing any large-scale influx of Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip.
“There will be no lenience or squandering of Egypt’s national security under any circumstances,” Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi said Tuesday. “The Egyptian people must be aware of the complexities of the situation and realize the magnitude of the threat.”
President Joe Biden’s administration is trying to orchestrate with Israel and Egypt a degree of “safe passage” for Palestinian refugees, according to a senior U.S. official.
The U.S. is looking into how it can help get civilians to areas of safety, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Tuesday. “But the details of that are something that are being discussed among the — the operational agencies, and I don’t want to share too much of that publicly at this time.”
Sisi’s reported rejection of the corridors follows earlier reports that Hamas leaders are divided about whether to support the idea.
“It is making Egypt’s task much more difficult,” an Egyptian security official told The National, a media outlet based in the United Arab Emirates. “The apparent schism between Hamas’s political leaders and the movement’s military wing is not helping either.”
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In the meantime, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu struck an agreement with National Unity party leader Benny Gantz, the center-right politician and former Israel Defense Forces chief who served as defense minister in the coalition government that ousted Netanyahu from the prime minister’s office in 2021 and 2022. Gantz’s ally in the displacement of Netanyahu, Yair Lapid, made clear that his bloc of center-left opposition lawmakers will support intense and thorough attacks on Hamas.
“The endgame is, there will be no Hamas in Gaza,” Lapid told France 24. “The Palestinian Authority should take over Gaza as it did before … but there are still many unknowns. Right now, what we are determined to do is just making sure there will be no Hamas and no Hamas capabilities in Gaza because they will not make us future victims. Enough is enough. What happened will not happen again.”
