Israel’s military revenge machine was set in motion towards Gaza. After devastating the periphery of the Palestinian strip with waves of airstrikes, the army attacked at dawn this Thursday the bases of the Nujba Force, the elite Hamas military unit that in the past led the attack that killed 1,300 Israelis Lives Came ended with the kidnapping of more than a hundred of them.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a few hours later that he would end Hamas, an Islamic resistance movement that he equated with the jihadists of the Islamic State (ISIS). “Just as ISIS was dismantled, Hamas will be dismantled and must be treated the same way,” he warned during US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to Jerusalem.
The head of US diplomacy guaranteed that his country would not leave Israel alone, but also called on Netanyahu to avert harm to the civilian population through a military campaign of retaliation considered one of the most violent in the 75-year history of the US Country. During his visit, Blinken reported that at least 25 Americans had died in Israel since the Hamas offensive.
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The Israeli army said that the command center of the attacked Nujba unit consisted of “terrorists selected by senior Hamas officials” and that its task was to carry out operations such as ambushes, raids and sabotage operations. The forces also claimed they killed Mohamed Abu Shamla, a senior commander of Hamas’s naval division.
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Israel has placed the Gaza Strip under a full siege, except for its southern border with Egypt, the only point through which humanitarian aid enters the coastal enclave, where 2.3 million people are crammed into an area slightly larger than Malta. Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz has warned Hamas that it will leave Gaza without electricity, fuel, water and food until the hostages are released. “Humanitarian aid for Gaza? “No electric switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no tanker truck will enter until the Israeli hostages return home,” Katz tweeted.
The number of victims was equalized this Thursday for the first time since the war escalated. The death toll since last Saturday stands at around 1,300 on both sides (later the Palestinian Ministry of Health increased it to over 1,400), while in Israel the number of wounded exceeds 3,200 and reaches 6,000 in the Gaza Strip.
From the West Bank, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned violence against civilians, both over the Hamas attacks against Israel and the Israeli army’s subsequent bombing of the Gaza Strip. “We reject killings or ill-treatment against civilians on both sides because they violate morals, religion and international law,” Abbas told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
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