Israel plans to step up its attacks on the Gaza Strip starting Saturday as it prepares for the next stage of its war against Hamas, an Israeli military spokesman said.
Asked about a possible ground invasion of Gaza, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters on Saturday evening that the military was trying to create optimal conditions in advance.
“We will increase our attacks to minimize threats to our forces in the next phases of the war. We will increase attacks from today,” Hagari said.
He reiterated his call for Gaza City residents to move south for safety.
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However, many people in Israel fear that their family members or friends still held captive by Hamas could be caught in the crossfire of a ground attack. The Israeli military estimates that Hamas militants are holding around 200 hostages.
Eli Cohen says militants captured his 27-year-old niece Inbar Haiman at the Nova music festival on October 7, leaving at least 260 festival-goers killed by Hamas.
“In total there were four terrorists who kidnapped them into the Gaza Strip,” Cohen said.
Cohen said Friday’s release of two American hostages — a mother and daughter from Illinois — “gives me hope because we see that there are some negotiations going on over Qatar. And we see that Hamas understands that it has to release people.”
As President Biden boarded Air Force One on Friday evening, he was asked whether he thought Israel should postpone a ground attack until Hamas releases more hostages. The President replied “Yes.” However, a White House official later said the president was too far away and did not fully hear the question. CBS News reached out to the White House seeking clarification on whether the president believes Israel should postpone a ground invasion, but received no response.
Deliveries to the besieged Gaza Strip began on Saturday, two weeks after Hamas raged in southern Israel and Israel responded with airstrikes.
Egypt’s state news agency Al-Qahera, which is close to security authorities, reported that only 20 trucks had reached the Gaza Strip on Saturday, out of more than 200 trucks carrying about 3,000 tons of aid that had been stationed near the border crossing for days. The trucks were carrying 44,000 bottles of drinking water from the United Nations Children’s Fund – enough for 22,000 people for a single day, it said.
However, no U.S. citizens or other foreigners who had been stranded in Gaza since the war began were allowed to enter Egypt.
The death toll in Gaza has now reached 4,385 – including 1,756 children and 967 women – and 13,561 injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry said at a news conference on Saturday. 70 percent of the victims were women, children and the elderly, said the ministry spokesman.
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