As protests mount around the world against the Israeli army’s bombing of the Gaza Strip, the IDF announced Saturday evening that it would “step up” its attacks on the enclave from now on in preparation for the next phase of its offensive .
“From today (Saturday) we will increase the attacks (…),” said General Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli army.
“We will enter the next phases of the war under the conditions that are optimal for us, not according to what we can be told,” he added during a news conference broadcast live on television.
General Hagari also confirmed the presence of at least 210 hostages in Gaza, most of them Israelis.
Earlier Saturday, several Israeli army officials visited troops on the front lines and emphasized the forces’ preparation for a possible ground intervention in the Gaza Strip.
“We will invade Gaza, we will do it for operational reasons, to destroy Hamas and terrorist infrastructure, and we will do it in a professional manner,” Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said at a troop review.
“Gaza is complex, Gaza is densely populated, the enemy is preparing many things there, but we are also preparing for him,” the senior officer warned. “And we will remember the photos and images and the deaths from two weeks ago.”
4,385 dead in Gaza
In the days following the October 7 Hamas attack, the Israeli government indicated that a ground operation in the enclave was inevitable.
According to Israeli authorities, more than 1,400 people have been killed by Hamas militants in Israel since October 7, most of them civilians who were shot, burned alive or mutilated from the Gaza Strip on the day of the attack. It was the deadliest attack since Israel’s founding in 1948.
According to the Hamas Health Ministry, at least 4,385 people, mostly civilians, were killed in the bombings in the Gaza Strip, which was bombed daily in retaliation for attacks by Islamist militants.
It is the deadliest Israeli military operation against Gaza since Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the territory in 2005 after 38 years of occupation.