2023-10-14 23:21:41
by Davide Frattini
Once the ultimatum expires, the border with Egypt remains closed. «Bodies of Israeli hostages found in the Strip». A bomb hits a convoy of Palestinians fleeing in one of the “corridors” towards the south: children also killed
FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
JERUSALEM – On the leaflets that the Israeli army drops on the other side of the front, half of the Strip or more is colored dark red, like the “heart” of Gaza which – an officer warns – “we will be forced to invade because they are barricaded there the leaders of Hamas.”
Since 4pm yesterday afternoon, this entire area should have been evacuated by civilians, according to the announcements in Arabic also distributed via social media. The cars, vans and carts clog the main road of these 363 square kilometres, down towards the south and the border with Egypt, beyond Gaza City because in this latest clash the objective is to put the infantry and tanks under siege. tower blocks of the largest city. And this new phase – the spokespersons of the armed forces announce – is imminent. The commanders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are also aware of this and target Israeli cities with rockets all day, until an even more massive launch on Tel Aviv at 9pm.
Concrete barriers
The Egyptian military has erected concrete barriers on the border, pressure from the international community for Cairo to keep the crossing open or allow humanitarian corridors has not worked so far. 35,000 have taken refuge in the main hospital in the Strip, “they hope it is a safe place”, says doctor Medhat Abbas to the Associated Press agency, except that Israeli intelligence has been repeating for years: Hamas has dug under the Shifa the bunkers where to install its command center.
On the coast, the lack of electricity caused the desalination system to explode and sea water comes out of the taps. The Palestinian dead are over 2000, civilians and combatants. Videos have been relaunched from Gaza – which the British BBC claims to have verified – of what appears to be an Israeli bombing of a fleeing convoy: the images show the bed of the truck full of people and then the bloody result of the explosion, 70 dead . The impact is not filmed.
I leader da Doha
From a distance – in kilometers and by the anguish of a million Palestinians forced to leave their homes – Ismail Hanyeh, the Hamas boss who lives in Qatar, urges them not to leave – “no removals within the Strip nor exile in Egypt” — in fact it orders them to stay in the area where the first Israeli incursion will pass after the air force has created the “paths” — in the coldness of war jargon — for the tanks and soldiers with bombing. Another fundamentalist leader, also from Doha, tells the American New Yorker magazine that the organization is “willing to free the hostages” if Israel stops the military campaign.
Yesterday the Tel Aviv army confirmed that it had found, during the first ground incursions carried out inside the Strip, the “corpses” of some Israeli hostages taken by Hamas commandos during the attack on the Jewish state on 7 October. “We have found and located the bodies of some kidnapped Israelis in the Gaza Strip,” military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner said in a briefing.
The visit to Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister who yesterday visited the devastated villages for the first time and met the soldiers deployed around Gaza, from the beginning indicated the elimination of Hamas as a victory, is unlikely at this point to consider the return of the 126 civilians and soldiers kidnapped on the Saturday of horror was sufficient.
Bibi new kibbutz
To the troops on alert for the order to invade he proclaims: «Are you ready for what is coming? This war will continue.”
In the emergency government formed on Thursday, the prime minister could also include Avigdor Liberman, who in 2018 resigned as his defense minister in protest against a truce with Hamas, insisting that the jihadist group must be dismantled, its control over Gaza shattered, with weapons in 2007 against President Abu Mazen’s Palestinian Authority.
Plan
The details of the military plans obviously remain secret and are currently being discussed on the twelfth floor of the Kirya, the large white cube on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, where the limited war cabinet – Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Benny Gantz, who accepted to leave the opposition for the duration of the conflict.
It is the politicians who, eight days after the massacre – 1300 Israelis dead – begin to define the objectives of the operation. «At the end of the intervention the Strip will be smaller, an area classified as a security zone will be created where anyone who enters will be intercepted. We must make it clear to everyone: whoever attacks Israel will lose territory”, comments Gideon Sa’ar, a defector from the Likud in controversy with Netanyahu and now a minister in the national unity coalition.
On what is not yet a front, but remains the front line, exchanges of fire continue with Hezbollah which fired thirty mortar shells beyond the Blue Line drawn by the United Nations, followed by the response of the Israeli artillery.
October 14, 2023 (modified October 14, 2023 | 11:43 pm)
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