[ad_1]
Israel’s army said it had deployed ground troops in an attack on Hamas on the Gaza Strip after five days of continuous bombing aimed at a Palestinian militant group that fired more than 1,500 rockets at the Jewish state.
“Israeli Defense Forces are currently attacking ground and ground troops on the Gaza Strip,” the army said in a statement. A military spokesman later clarified that Israeli forces had not entered Gaza.
But the deployment of ground troops in the operation marks a five-day escalation of the conflict and reflects whether Israel intends to invade the gang for the first time since the conflict killed 2,000 Palestinians and 72 Israelis in 2014.
Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the militant group took control of the list in 2007.
Israel has been carrying out airstrikes against militants in Gaza for five days, killing 103 Palestinians, including 38 women and children, according to health officials on the list. A total of 580 people were injured.
Despite the bombing, Hamas has continued to fire rocket salvos into the depths of Israel, and on Thursday Israeli authorities caused international flights to be diverted from Tel Aviv. Militants have killed seven Israelis this week, including a soldier and a child.
Israeli airstrikes hit northern Gaza early Friday © AFP via Getty Images
Israel deployed additional troops – including two infantry brigades and an armored vehicle – near the Gaza border, and called 9,000 more reservists on Thursday. The military had previously said it was examining all scenarios, including a potential ground operation.
Without resorting to violence, Egyptian officials were trying to secure a ceasefire, a Western diplomat said. Hady Amr, the top US official for Israeli and Palestinian affairs, was also on his way to Israel Attempts by the Biden administration to exacerbate the crisis.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters Thursday that Washington was immersed in a deep state. Russian President Vladimir Putin and UN Secretary-General António Guterres also called for an end to the fighting on Thursday. But the Western diplomat said Israel had earlier rejected an effort to stop fighting between Israel and Egypt, which borders Gaza.
Earlier, Israel invaded Gaza in its wars with Hamas in 2009 and 2014, in operations that destroyed the poor Mediterranean list. The conflict killed more than 1,000 Palestinians and 2,000 Palestinians, respectively. However, Hamas has mostly managed to maintain a large arsenal of domestic rockets. Since the 2014 war, Israel has been reluctant to send troops to Gaza for fear of kidnapping its soldiers and other risks associated with these operations.
Israel is stepping up its campaign against Hamas as the country descends from the worst community violence in the country over the years.
Violence between Israeli Jews and minimal Israeli Arabs erupted in several Israeli towns this week, shaking the nation to its core, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to end the riots “by force, by force”.
The Arab-Israeli conflict has been dominated by clashes between Israeli and Palestinian factions in the occupied territories for more than a decade, but community violence added dangerous dynamics, increasing pressure on the Israeli government.
Israeli Arabs make up about one-fifth of the population of the Jewish state, with Israeli passports and voting in the country’s elections. But they denounce institutional and social discrimination and have turned sympathy for the Palestinian cause into the goal of right-wing politicians.
In a speech in the city of Lod on Thursday evening, the worst victim of community violence, Netanyahu promised security services, working with the Shin Bet home intelligence agency, would be given a free hand in the incident to stop the riots, saying they were not concerned about “commissions, investigations and controls.”
“You help, don’t worry,” he said. “You have to use force when you have an incident, a lot of force.” He said he was considering the use of administrative detentions to detain Palestinians in the occupied West Bank for a long time without entering the lawyers and entering the army for a long time.
As more and more signs of a growing crisis, Israel said three rockets were fired from Lebanon north of Israel on Thursday, underscoring the risk of opening another front. The Israeli military said the rockets landed in the Mediterranean and caused no damage.
It was not clear who fired the rockets and Israel’s northern border with Lebanon has been quiet in recent months. Hezbollah lives in Lebanon, a movement in support of Iran that fought a month-long war with Israel in 2006, as well as Palestinian refugees and militants. A Lebanese army official said the situation surrounding the rockets is still unclear. He was reportedly arrested by Palestinian media, local media reported.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Unifil, has said that General General Stefano Del Col, the head of his mission, has spoken to the Lebanese army and the IDF to demand scaling up after this latest rocket attack. A Hezbollah spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
[ad_2]
Source link
