Military officials said Wednesday that Israeli forces had broken through Hamas’s first line of defense and were closing in on Gaza City, saying the deaths of 16 soldiers this week in and near Gaza were a “heavy price to pay.”
Meanwhile, the military continued to bombard the Gaza Strip, eliminating the commander of the terror group’s anti-tank missile complex.
Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “With advance planning, precise intelligence and joint attacks [from the land, air and sea]“Our forces broke through Hamas’ front lines of defense in the north of the Gaza Strip.”
Brig. General Itzik Cohen, commander of the IDF’s 162nd Division, said Israeli forces had advanced deep into the Gaza Strip and were “at the gates of Gaza City.”
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Cohen, speaking to reporters near the Gaza Strip, said that in the last five days “we have destroyed much of Hamas’s capabilities, its strategic facilities, its entire arsenal of explosives, its underground tunnels and other facilities that we have completely destroyed, attacked.”
However, he warned that it was a “long task” and there was still a lot of work left.
The Israeli Air Force continued to provide protection for troops and tanks fighting in the enclave. In one of its airstrikes on Wednesday, the IDF said it killed the commander of Hamas’ anti-tank missile complex, Muhammad A’sar.
According to the military, A’sar was “in charge of all Hamas anti-tank missile units throughout the Gaza Strip, commanding the units on a day-to-day basis and supporting their activities in emergencies.”
The military released a video showing the airstrike.
The IDF said that under his command numerous rocket attacks were carried out against Israeli civilians and IDF soldiers.
One such rocket killed 11 soldiers in a Namer armored personnel carrier in Gaza on Tuesday. Two other Israeli soldiers died when a grenade was fired at a building they were in.
Two more soldiers were killed when their tank ran over an IED on Tuesday and another was killed by mortar fire on the border on Wednesday, bringing the military’s death toll to 16 since Tuesday morning.
Top row from left: Lt. Ariel Reich, Cpl. Asif Luger, Sgt. Adi Danan, Staff Sergeant Halel Solomon. Bottom row from left: Staff Sergeant Sgt. Erez Mishlovsky, Cpl. Lior Siminovich, Staff Sergeant Roei Dawi, Lt. Pedayah Mark
The losses highlighted the threats soldiers face as the army shifts to fierce urban fighting in Gaza’s crowded streets after weeks of heavy-handed air strikes. The urban battle zone is believed to be littered with bombs and booby traps and crisscrossed by an extensive network of tunnels used by terrorists to ambush or surprise troops.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said in a letter to troops on Wednesday that the “high and painful price” paid in the war against Hamas was “necessary.”
“We are in the middle of a war. It will be a long war and we will fight it to the end. We are proactive and fight the enemy in his territory, striking him exactly where he was working on his plans and in the very areas where the evil terrorists came from,” Halevi wrote.
“We advance through the phases of war, operating on the ground within enemy territory, supported by accurate and heavy fire. Activities will continue and intensify depending on the stage of the war and its objectives as defined by the Israeli government,” he said.
“We are fighting for our right and the right of future generations to live in security and prosperity in our homeland,” he added.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visits the Gaza Strip border on November 1, 2023. (Elad Malka/Ministry of Defense)
Earlier, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a press conference that the war exacted a “heavy price” and described the fallen soldiers as “children of all of us.”
Israel “must defeat the enemy for the good of the fallen, for the good of the living, for the good of the people of Israel and the state of Israel,” he said.
“Fierce fighting is taking place in Gaza. “The IDF is making progress toward defeating Hamas,” Gallant added. “The war is progressing according to the objectives. Hamas suffers serious setbacks. More than 10,000 munitions were dropped on Gaza City, thousands of targets were hit, thousands of sites were destroyed, thousands of terrorists were eliminated.”
He said IDF soldiers encountered Hamas gunmen emerging from tunnels, hospitals and schools and vowed that Israel “will not stop until we reach all terrorists of all ranks,” adding: “The enemy has only two options – to die” or to surrender unconditionally.”
Both Gallant and Halevi said Israel was working tirelessly to secure the release of the 242 prisoners kidnapped by terrorist groups into Gaza during the Oct. 7 attack, most of them civilians. A senior Hamas official said the Palestinian terror group would repeat such massacres again and again if given the opportunity.
This crop from AFPTV video footage shows Palestinians surveying the destruction following an Israeli attack on Jabaliya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip on November 1, 2023, after Israel attacked a Hamas stronghold there. (Photo by AFP)
As part of Jerusalem’s efforts to free the hostages, Foreign Minister Eli Cohen spoke on Wednesday with the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric, and sharply criticized the organization’s behavior so far.
Cohen’s office said he told Spoljaric that the ICRC must demand that all the hostages meet and provide them with medical assistance.
“The Red Cross has no right to exist if it fails to visit the hostages held by the terrorist group Hamas,” Cohen told Spoljaric, pointing out that “children, women and Holocaust survivors” were being held captive.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people with foreign passports were allowed to leave the Gaza Strip through Egypt’s Rafah border crossing on Wednesday, along with dozens of seriously injured Palestinians seeking medical treatment.
US President Joe Biden announced that American citizens who want to leave the Gaza Strip could do so, with some leaving on Wednesday and others in the next few days. About 700 Americans are believed to be living in the Gaza Strip, and about 400 of them have contacted American authorities since the war began to express interest in leaving, said Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesman.
The U.S. is working to get those 400 citizens out of Gaza along with 600 of their family members, Miller said.
An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south from Gaza City and other northern areas after repeated Israeli calls for evacuation, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north, including many who left the country and later returned because Israel also carries out airstrikes in the south.
People walk through a gate to enter the Rafah border crossing into Egypt in the southern Gaza Strip on November 1, 2023 (Mohammed ABED / AFP)
Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’ infrastructure and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group that dominates the Gaza Strip. It says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates while trying to minimize civilian casualties.
The war was sparked on October 7, when about 3,000 Hamas-led terrorists crossed the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, under the cover of a barrage of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli cities were killed, about 1,400 people and cities.
The vast majority of those killed when terrorists occupied border communities were civilians – including babies, children and the elderly. Entire families were executed in their homes and over 260 people were slaughtered at an open-air festival, many amid horrific terrorist brutality.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry, more than 8,700 Palestinians have been killed and more than 22,000 people injured in the war. The number, which could not be confirmed, would be unprecedented in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence. Hamas is accused of artificially inflating the death toll and does not distinguish between civilians and terrorists. Some of the dead are believed to have been victims of misfired rockets by Palestinian terrorists.
Jacob Magid, Times of Israel staff and agencies contributed to this report.