Defense Minister Yoav Gallant tells troops on the border with the Gaza Strip that the order to enter the Hamas-run territory will come soon. “You now see Gaza from afar, soon you will see it from the inside,” Gallant tells troops of the Givati Brigade. “The order will come,” he adds.
With the country, and much of the world, awaiting an indication of what Israel plans to do in the next stage of its war against Hamas — especially now that US President Joe Biden has come and gone — the security cabinet is meeting.
This is the forum that would need to approve a ground incursion, though it should be noted that it has convened many times throughout the war already.
October 19, 2023. Senior Israeli officials talked up the prospect of an imminent large-scale ground campaign in the Gaza Strip to root out the Hamas terror group Thursday, making a series of visits to Israel Defense Forces soldiers stationed near the territory and predicting that the fighting will be “difficult, long and intense,” but ultimately victorious.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also paid a visit to the frontlines, rallying a group of Golani soldiers near the Gaza border and telling them Israel was on its way to a major victory.
“We are going to win with all our might,” Netanyahu told the group of soldiers. “All of Israel is behind you, and we are going to heavily strike our enemies so that we can achieve victory.”
The head of the IDF Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, said the expected ground offensive would be “long and intense.”
“This war was forced on us, with a cruel enemy that harmed us greatly. But we stopped them… we are striking them heavily,” Finkelman told troops near the Gaza border.
Gallant also took responsibility for the failure to prevent Hamas’s onslaught on southern Israel, speaking at a military assembly ground near the Gaza border.
“I am responsible for the defense establishment. I was responsible for it in the last two weeks, even in the difficult incidents, and I am responsible for bringing it to victory in the battle,” Gallant said.
“We will be precise and deadly and we will continue until we complete the mission,” Gallant said.
Israel has for the past week urged all residents of northern Gaza, some one million people, to evacuate to the center and south of the Strip as it prepares to intensify operations in the enclave’s north. Hundreds of thousands have done so, according to the military, despite Hamas urging them not to leave their homes and in some cases putting up roadblocks.
In a further sign the start of the ground offensive may be looming, Netanyahu’s security cabinet, the body which must approve a ground incursion, met Thursday evening. The forum has convened many times throughout the war already.
War erupted after some 2,500 Hamas-led terrorists blasted through the Israeli border fence on October 7, streamed into Israel via land, sea and air under a barrage of thousands of rockets, and killed some 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians.
Terrorists also took at least 203 hostages of all ages into Gaza and are holding them captive.
Israel called up 360,000 reservists in the wake of the massacre and has vowed to eliminate Hamas, which has been the de facto ruler in the Strip since 2006.
With tanks and weapons mustering near the Gaza border, reports have indicated that the military is awaiting a green light from the political leadership.
Recent days have seen growing pressure on the government to devise a clear strategy for how it plans to avoid getting bogged down in a lengthy reoccupation of the Strip, while ensuring the Palestinian enclave is no longer managed by the terror group and no longer poses a threat.
National Unity party chair Benny Gantz and fellow party member Gadi Eisenkot, who entered the coalition last week to form an emergency wartime cabinet, have demanded the creation of a Gaza exit strategy and have tasked a committee with drawing one up, an Israeli official told The Times of Israel earlier this week.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has also been privately pressing Israel to flesh out its exit strategy, the Israeli official and a US official said at the time. Netanyahu and his inner circle indicated to their American counterparts that Israel had not yet come up with such a strategy and is more focused on the immediate goal of removing Hamas from power in Gaza, the US official said.
On Wednesday, Biden cautioned Israel against getting bogged down in Gaza indefinitely, drawing on the US’s experiences in Afghanistan following its 2001 invasion to topple the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
“Justice must be done,” Biden said in Tel Aviv. “But I caution this: While you feel that rage, don’t be consumed by it… After 9/11, we were enraged in the United States. While we sought justice and got justice, we also made mistakes.”
There were also growing exchanges of fire and rocket attacks on the Lebanon border, compounding fears that the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group could open a new war front, which it and Tehran have threatened will happen if Israel enters Gaza.
In Kiryat Shmona, three people were injured by a rocket strike on a home, in what appeared to be the most serious attack on the city since 2006.
In a briefing last week, a military official indicated that conditions on the northern border could affect the IDF’s decision-making on when to launch an incursion.
