2023-11-10 09:26:06
General Charles Q. Brown, new Chief of Staff of the American Armed Forces, warns of the risks in Gaza: a high number of Palestinians killed could strengthen the ranks of fundamentalists and increase the anger of Arab countries
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
NEW YORK — The Israeli military has limited time to conduct its operations in Gaza before anger in the region’s Arab countries and frustration among the United States and other allies over the number of Palestinian civilians killed can interfere with the objective of the Jewish state to eradicate Hamas, writes the New York Times. The new chief of staff of the US military, General Charles Q. Brown, was asked by journalists if he believes that the civilians killed in Gaza could be the seed for the creation of new members of Hamas: the general said that this It’s a big concern.
The Biden administration has given its support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and the goal of destroying Hamas and is not calling for a ceasefire, but for humanitarian pauses, which it obtained yesterday. Washington also asked Israel to conduct “calculated and precise” raids, with “lighter” bombs guided by satellites, and operating as much as possible by land, to minimize Palestinian civilian casualties. Israel appears to have followed American advice in avoiding a large-scale land invasion, but it also dropped thousands of tons of bombs. The military claims that it serves to protect its soldiers from ambushes who attack compound after compound and tunnel after tunnel (about thirty were killed).
Spokesman Jonathan Cornicus told journalists yesterday, including Corriere della Sera, gathered at the Israeli Consulate in New York, that the tunnels dismantled using explosives so far are 130 and that many weapons of both foreign and local manufacture have been found (there are including weapons from American warehouses looted in Iraq or Afghanistan).
Hamas hides in the tunnels: every time Israel hits one, an entire neighborhood collapses. For this reason, in briefings with journalists, US officials accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields. At the same time, however, General Brown himself asked the Jewish State to take this into account when trying to minimize civilian casualties.
The New York Times notes that the longer the war drags on, the more the risks of regional escalation increase, “the more solidarity for the Palestinian cause grows, even as Israel continues to bury its dead.” Israeli army spokesman Cornicus told reporters yesterday that Israel was going “well beyond what is required” by international law and war to try to protect civilians. He said perhaps two or three thousand Hamas fighters had been killed so far, including 60 senior commanders, but that many more remained to be found, including Yahya Sinwar, one of 1,000 Palestinian prisoners exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilat Shalit in 2011 and who planned the Hamas attack on 7 October. “Yahya Sinwar is a dead man walking,” Cornicus said, saying he was unable to estimate how long it would take and how many Hamas fighters still needed to be eliminated. Time is a decisive factor for Israel: «All the conflicts I have been involved in in my career, with the exception probably of Desert Shield/Desert Storm, have lasted longer than people imagined», said the American General Brown.
November 10, 2023 (modified November 10, 2023 | 08:38)
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