Comment on this storyComment
TEL AVIV – Israel’s army said on Thursday it would seek the end of Hamas in Gaza, as airstrikes on the besieged enclave targeted the group’s senior leaders and caused scores of civilian casualties.
The deepening conflict with Hamas comes as a reeling Israel is grappling with the fallout from an attack that saw the group’s militants pursue civilians and soldiers in communities on the Israeli border on Saturday, in one of the deadliest attacks More than 1,000 people have been killed and numerous others kidnapped in Israeli history.
The unprecedented raid has left the region reeling and upended a years-long standoff between Israel and Hamas, which effectively covers the Gaza Strip and its more than two million civilians. Israeli leaders are announcing a ground invasion that will change the status quo forever, in stark contrast to previous incursions that left Hamas in place.
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, a spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said in a televised news conference on Thursday that Israel will no longer allow Hamas to exist as an entity next door.
“Unlike other operations, we are breaking down the leadership and sovereignty of the Hamas organization,” he said. Israel has mobilized 360,000 reservists in recent days and armored divisions are massing near the Gaza border.
According to the Palestinian Health Ministry, the death toll from the six-day airstrikes in Gaza has reached 1,417 dead, including 447 children and 248 women – quickly approaching the more than 2,000 dead in the 2014 war, even before the ground invasion began. More than 338,000 people have left their homes in search of safety, but there is little to be found. Both exits from the territory, to Israel and Egypt, are closed.
Humanitarian groups are increasingly warning about the consequences of military action in a densely populated urban area already choked by an Israeli and Egyptian blockade that prevents many goods from entering the area and most people from ever leaving.
Doctors Without Borders described the conditions in hospitals in the Gaza Strip as “catastrophic”. As local authorities declared that the enclave’s main power plant had now run out of fuel, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned that “hospitals without power risk turning into morgues.”
“We know what it was like in 2014 and 2021, thousands died. Every time our medical colleagues go to work not knowing whether they will see their homes or their families again,” Matthias Kennes, the head of MSF’s mission in Gaza, said in a statement. “This time there were already 1,200 deaths after five days. What can people do? Where should they go?”
Israel has not allowed goods into Gaza since the airstrikes began, describing the proposed conditions as a total siege – a tactic banned under international law. On Thursday, Israel’s energy minister said, Israel Katzreiterated that threat and said there would be no break in the siege unless Hamas released the hostages believed to be in Gaza.
“Humanitarian aid for Gaza? Until the Israeli hostages are returned home, no electrical switch will be opened, no water hydrant will be opened and no tanker truck will enter. Humanitarian for humanitarian. And no one should preach morality to us,” he posted on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Hagari said Thursday that the army had notified the families of the 97 Israelis held captive by the militants. Relatives said the group – which also includes women and young children – were kidnapped from their homes and a music festival and driven into the Gaza Strip.
Most people learned the news not from officials, but from the Internet. Some recognized their loved ones in videos circulating on social media. Others tracked their journeys from southern Israel across the border into Gaza using cell phone location data.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it was ready to help. “We have people on the ground and we are ready to play our role as a neutral mediator and contribute to the release of these people,” regional director Fabrizio Carbone told reporters.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Tel Aviv on Thursday to show his support for Israel. “The message I bring to Israel is this: You may be strong enough to defend yourself in your own strength, but as long as America exists, you will never, ever have to,” he said from a podium in Tel Aviv, where he stood side by side with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The United States is “working closely with Israel to secure the release of the men, women, children and elderly people taken hostage by Hamas,” Blinken said. Fourteen Americans were missing as of Thursday, according to the White House.
In Netanyahu’s third term as prime minister, he leads the most combative and religiously conservative government in Israeli history. It has been in crisis since he returned to office last year.
Beholden to the most extreme elements of his coalition, he has been the target of mass street protests over a proposed law to weaken the Supreme Court and criticism from the White House over the decision to allow a hardline Jewish settler movement to build thousands of new homes in the occupied territories that the Palestinians are seeking for a future state.
While he calls for an intensification of the war in Gaza, he has formed an emergency government with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and his rival Benny Gantz.
On Thursday, the left-wing Haaretz newspaper praised the decision and called on Netanyahu to distance himself from political allies who have used genocidal language to advocate for the eradication of Palestinian communities.
“A nation that looks out for itself would push such people to the margins of society,” the newspaper wrote in an editorial. “Just yesterday, [National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir] He continued to foment civil war because for him, what is happening now is just an opportunity to realize his dreams.”
Netanyahu’s office released photos on Thursday purporting to show the bodies of babies shot and burned during Hamas’s invasion of Israel. This appeared to be part of a broader push to build diplomatic support for a ground invasion of Gaza.
Palestinian media channels, meanwhile, broadcast photos showing the bodies of babies and young children, some unrecognizable, being recovered from the rubble.
Each ground operation now is expected to be longer, bloodier and more extensive than the last one in 2014, and will likely be aimed in part at destroying Hamas’ extensive underground tunnel network. In this war, troops were concentrated only on the outskirts of urban areas. But the Israeli military this time insists that soldiers will not hesitate to move into even the most populated areas where the hostages are believed to be held.
Airstrikes have already been more extensive than in the past, and the army has abandoned rules of engagement such as “roof knocks,” a tactic the Israeli air force uses to issue warnings by firing non-explosive or low-level devices at buildings before destroying them.
In previous conflicts, Israel has repeatedly claimed successes in assassinating leaders and bombing training ranges, rocket factories and other facilities linked to Hamas and other militant groups in the enclave, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad. But after the ceasefires, these groups were also seen rebuilding their reserves and new leaders emerging.
Even if an invasion occurs, Israel wants to avoid re-occupying the Gaza Strip, which promises to be costly and protracted, said Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli military intelligence chief. Israel has superior weapons, but Hamas is familiar with the dense urban landscape and an elaborate tunnel system that it has been digging for years.
Yadlin said Israel had sought to expel Hamas from the Gaza Strip and then transfer the territory to the Palestinian Authority or another Arab entity, but that it would retain its right to continue to counter the buildup of Palestinian militants there, as it did in the Gaza Strip West Bank do.
“Whoever wants Gaza will get it,” he said. “We don’t want to rule over two million Palestinians.”
Hamas, widely believed to have sought this conflict to hinder the regional process of Arab countries’ normalization with Israel and to raise its profile, has welcomed a ground war – despite the untold suffering it would cause.
“We’re actually waiting for it [an Israeli ground invasion] because we cannot counter the American warplanes from the air,” senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said in an interview with The Economist on Wednesday. “But we have tough men on the ground who can handle any threat.”
Loveluck reported from London. Leo Sands and Ellen Francis in London contributed to this report.