Israeli airstrikes hit targets across the Gaza Strip overnight and into this morning, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to “crush and destroy” Hamas with the support of a new war cabinet that includes a long-time opposition critic.
“Every Hamas member is a dead man,” the Israeli prime minister said menacingly in a televised address last night, perhaps revealing the scale of the ground assault operation his defense forces are preparing for as they encircle Gaza.
According to the Israeli military, the overnight attacks targeted Hamas’ elite Nukhba forces, including command centers used by the militants who attacked Israel on Saturday, as well as the home of a senior Hamas naval agent, where it was reportedly not reported specified weapons were stored.
“Right now we are focused on eliminating their leadership,” said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman.
“Not just the military leadership, but also the government leadership, all the way up to (senior Hamas leader Yehiyeh) Sinwar. “They were directly connected.”
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza said Israeli strikes demolished two multi-story houses on residents without warning, killing and wounding “a large number” of people, mostly civilians. Hamas has threatened to kill Israeli hostages if Israel attacks Palestinian civilians without warning.
Meanwhile, ordinary Palestinians in Gaza spent the night in complete darkness, surrounded by the ruins of pulverized neighborhoods, as international aid groups warned that deaths could rise as the area runs out of supplies due to an Israeli blockade.
Israel has stopped imports of food, water, fuel and medicine into the area. On Tuesday, Gaza’s only power plant ran out of fuel and shut down, leaving only lights powered by scattered private generators. These also switch off if no fuel can enter.
The war, sparked by a bloody and widespread attack on Israel by Hamas, has already claimed at least 2,400 lives on both sides.
An Israeli army self-propelled howitzer fires shots near the Gaza border in southern Israel on October 11, 2023
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Palestinians carry a victim on rubble after Israeli attacks in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 11, 2023
The Israeli Defense Forces have released videos showing attacks on Hamas targets
Rescuers recover bodies from house that was targeted by Israeli airstrike
The war, sparked by a bloody and widespread attack on Israel by Hamas, has already claimed at least 2,400 lives on both sides.
Clouds of smoke rise from Israeli air strikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023
Rockets will be fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, October 11, 2023. Israel has launched heavy airstrikes on Gaza after the territory’s militant rulers launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on Saturday, killing over 1,000 people and taking prisoners. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed in the airstrikes
Destruction caused by Israeli airstrikes is seen in Gaza City, Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Israeli tanks move near the Israeli Gaza border, Israel, Wednesday, October 11, 2023
A convoy of Israel Defense Forces soldiers travels along a road near the outskirts of Netivot and near an artillery position on October 11, 2023, in Netivot, Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Israel will “crush and destroy” Hamas and that every member of the terrorist organization is a “dead man.”
A senior Israeli Air Force officer, Brig. Gen. Omer Tishler, said Wednesday that the strikes were on an “unprecedented scale.”
He said Israel had focused its efforts on targeting Hamas officials and deterring them from ever attacking Israel again.
Hamas’ violence killed 1,200 Israelis – many of them at a music festival or in small farming and artistic communities near the Gaza Strip. Militants in Gaza are holding an estimated 150 people taken hostage by Israel – soldiers, men, women, children and older adults – and have fired thousands of rockets into Israel over the past five days.
Tishler, the Israeli Air Force chief of staff, said: “Here is an enemy firing rockets and attacking a civilian population. We will never allow that again.”
According to the IDF, terrorist groups have fired more than 5,000 rockets into Israel since Saturday.
Tishler said the Israeli Air Force was not targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip but that the attacks were no longer “surgical in nature.”
“We don’t behave like the other side, we don’t attack the civilian population.” “Behind every attack there is a goal,” he said.
“We act precisely and professionally, but not surgically.” I’m not talking about single, ten or hundred digits [of strikes]. “We’re talking thousands of munitions.”
According to military data obtained by The Times of Israel on Wednesday morning, the IDF has carried out strikes against at least 2,687 targets across the Gaza Strip since Saturday.
The Israeli government is under intense public pressure to topple Hamas after its militants stormed a border fence on Saturday and massacred hundreds of Israelis in their homes, on the streets and at an outdoor music festival.
Netanyahu claimed the attackers committed atrocities including tying up boys and girls and shooting them in the head, burning people alive, raping women and beheading soldiers.
The prime minister’s claims could not be independently confirmed and authorities did not immediately provide further details. Rescue workers and witnesses have described horrific scenes, including the slaughter of elderly people and finding bloodied rooms full of massacred civilians.
Opposition leader Benny Gantz, a former defense minister and political opponent of Netanyahu, joined a new war cabinet yesterday at a time when the Israeli military is looking increasingly likely to launch a ground offensive in Gaza.
“Our partnership is not political, it is a shared destiny,” said Gantz. “At this point we are all soldiers of Israel.”
Netanyahu said the people of Israel and its leadership are united. “We have put aside all differences because the fate of our state is at stake,” he said.
A man inspects the interior of a house damaged by Israeli artillery fire in the city of Al-Dhayra, Lebanon, on October 11, 2023
Israel Defense Forces reservists pose while lying on a tank near the Gaza border in Be’eri, Israel, Oct. 11, 2023
Rescuers recover bodies from house that was targeted by Israeli airstrike
Israel’s Iron Dome intercepts rockets fired from the Gaza Strip on October 11, 2023. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 1,000 Palestinians were killed and over 5,000 others were injured
Smoke rises from an explosion caused by Israeli airstrikes on the Egypt-Rafah border in the Gaza Strip
Israel Defense Forces soldiers walk through Kibbutz Be’eri, where days earlier Hamas militants killed over a hundred civilians near the Gaza border on October 11, 2023
Smoke rises after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Wednesday, October 11, 2023
On Wednesday, October 11, 2023, rockets will be fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip
A house is completely destroyed after it was burned down by Hamas militants during the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border on October 11, 2023 in Be’eri, Israel
An Israeli army flare lit up the sky over the northern Gaza Strip on Friday
An IDF soldier covers his ears as a grenade is fired into Gaza on Wednesday
Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists, deployed additional forces near Gaza and evacuated tens of thousands of residents from surrounding communities.
Armed forces are preparing for an upcoming ground operation as increasingly destructive airstrikes in Gaza have leveled entire city blocks and left an unknown number of bodies under rubble.
A ground offensive in Gaza, whose 2.3 million residents are tightly packed into a strip of land just 25 miles long, would likely result in a flood of casualties on both sides.
The U.N. said late Wednesday that the number of people displaced by the airstrikes had risen 30 percent in 24 hours to 339,000, two-thirds of them crowded into U.N. schools. Others sought shelter in the shrinking number of safe neighborhoods.
The Egyptian government rejected an American proposal to allow Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment to leave Gaza, a senior Egyptian official said early Thursday on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to speak to the press.
Egypt believes that allowing Palestinians to leave Gaza would harm the Palestinian cause, and its state media reported that the Israeli offensive was part of a plan to clear the enclave.
Convoys loaded with fuel and food lined up on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing on Wednesday but were unable to enter the Gaza Strip, the official said. The only border crossing between Egypt and Gaza was closed on Tuesday after Israeli airstrikes nearby.
The official said Egypt is talking with Israel and the United States about establishing safe corridors within the Gaza Strip and providing humanitarian assistance to the besieged Palestinians, as well as with Israel and other foreign governments about evacuating foreigners through the Rafah border crossing.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden dispatched his top diplomat to the Middle East to demonstrate Washington’s continued support for Israel, secure the release of prisoners including Americans and prevent the outbreak of a major war.
US President Joe Biden, accompanied by Vice President Kamala Harris and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, speaks after a telephone conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken speaks to reporters before boarding a plane on Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023
A view of the rubble of buildings hit by an Israeli airstrike in Jabalia, Gaza Strip, Wednesday, October 11, 2023
Blinken will arrive on Thursday and also visit Jordan, but will not visit the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where he usually meets Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Blinken and Abbas will meet on Friday, Hussein Al-Sheikh, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee, said on the social media platform X, without elaborating.
In a speech to a roundtable of Jewish community leaders in Washington, Biden said his deployment of military ships and planes closer to Israel should be seen as a signal to Iran, which supports the Islamist groups Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“We made it clear to the Iranians: Be careful,” Biden said.
Iran likely knew Hamas militants were planning “operations against Israel,” but initial U.S. intelligence reports showed some Iranian leaders were surprised by the group’s unprecedented attack from Gaza, U.S. sources said on Wednesday.
Iran has said it was not involved in the Hamas attacks.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed the conflict on Wednesday in the first phone call between the two leaders since a China-brokered deal between Tehran and Riyadh to resume ties.
Raisi and the Saudi crown prince discussed the “need to end war crimes against Palestine,” Iranian state media said.
The Saudi crown prince “affirmed that the kingdom is making all possible efforts to communicate with all international and regional parties to stop the ongoing escalation,” Saudi state news agency SPA said.