Netanyahu says country is preparing for land invasion; See speech
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, issued a statement on Wednesday (25) saying that the Israeli army was preparing to invade the Gaza Strip by land.
“We are working to create the best conditions for the start of the war. If we enter Gaza when the war begins, nothing will stop us from achieving our goal. “We only have one thing for Hamas, which is fire,” he says.
Netanyahu also encouraged Israeli citizens to bear arms and urged Palestinian civilians to leave the area.
“We call on the population who are not engaged in Gaza to leave the field and leave us.”
The prime minister said the decision on when troops would enter the blockaded Palestinian enclave would be made by the government’s Special Warfare Bureau. Netanyahu did not provide any further information or details about the operation.
Israeli forces had already said they were preparing a land attack on the Gaza Strip, but did not specify a date. According to the statement released on October 14, the attack would be part of a “largescale operation” that also includes attacks by air and sea.
Until now, Israeli forces have attacked Gaza through bombings an option that the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, often prefers to avoid the human and political costs.
Last week, the country’s defense minister detailed Israel’s plan for the Gaza Strip for the first time. He said the occupation was not final and would be done in three phases.
- The first of these, some of which is already underway, is air strikes and a land offensive.
- In a second moment, the military will focus on fighting “pockets of resistance” in the Gaza Strip.
- In the third phase, the minister said, troops will be withdrawn and Israel will create “a new security regime” that will bring “a new reality for the security of Israeli citizens.”
After completing the final phase, Israel will “forever abandon its responsibility for the Gaza Strip,” the minister said. He gave no details on how his country’s planned new security regime would work. But he said the main goal was to “destroy Hamas.”
Officially, Tel Aviv says it is after members of Hamas. The group not only carried out a series of terrorist attacks on Israel on Saturday (7), starting the latest war with Israel, but also rules the Gaza Strip.
Hamas has a political wing that won the region’s last elections. The Gaza Strip, along with the West Bank, is part of the territory that the Palestinians claimed to establish their own state.