Israel pounds Gaza, prepares for ground invasion

GAZA CITY/BEIRUT/WASHINGTON/ISTANBUL: Israel Wednesday pounded the Gaza Strip and prepared for a ground invasion of the enclave, three days after an attack by Hamas triggered the bloodiest war on the country’s territory for decades.

The Israeli military said it had hit more than 2,300 “Hamas targets” to date in response to Saturday’s deadly incursion by Hamas, while more than 4,500 rockets had been fired from Gaza, international wire agencies reported. In Israel, death toll has risen to 1,200, while Gaza officials reported 1,100 people killed as Israel pounded the territory with air strikes.

Hamas said two of its top officials had been killed, while Israel’s military said the bodies of roughly 1,500 Hamas fighters had been found. At least 30 people were killed and hundreds wounded as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with hundreds of air strikes overnight, a Hamas government official said Wednesday. The strikes destroyed several buildings of the Hamas-linked Islamic University in Gaza City, a university official said.

The Israeli military confirmed it had hit dozens of Hamas targets during the night. It said fighter jets destroyed “advanced detection systems” that Hamas used to spot military aircraft. They also hit 80 Hamas targets in the Beit Hanoun area of the northeastern Gaza Strip, including two bank branches used by Hamas in the enclave, the military said.

Israel has imposed a “total siege” on Gaza, suspending supplies of food, water, electricity and fuel to the already blockaded enclave. Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, is threatening to execute hostages kidnapped in Israel.

In announcing Israel’s latest death toll, army spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus said the figure was rising not because of the ongoing fighting, but because “we are discovering bodies of dead Israelis in various communities” The Israeli army has called up 300,000 reservists and massed tanks and other heavy armour both near Gaza and on the northern border with Lebanon. Meanwhile, Lebanon’s Hezbollah said it fired missiles on Israel Wednesday drawing retaliatory fire, after three of its members were killed earlier this week amid soaring border tensions.

Hezbollah “targeted a Zionist (Israeli) position... facing Dhayra village, with guided missiles,” in a “firm response to Zionist attacks... which led to the martyrdom of a number of brothers,” the group said in a statement. It warned of a “decisive” response to Israeli attacks “targeting our country and the security of our people, especially when these attacks lead to the deaths of martyrs”. The Israeli military said “in response to the anti-tank missile fired at IDF (army) soldiers a short while ago, an IDF aircraft struck a military observation post belonging to the Hezbollah in southern Lebanon”. Israeli artillery shelled “the area from which the launch originated,” the military added.

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) said Israeli fire on a border village wounded three civilians, adding that “around 10 houses have been directly hit”. An AFP correspondent in the border village of Dhayra earlier reported shelling close to residential areas that triggered fires in nearby groves. The NNA said Israeli fire on several locations along the border had been “countered by resistance (Hezbollah) machine guns”.

In a related development, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an “emergency government” with an opposition party leader, Benny Gantz, for the duration of the war with Hamas. “Following a meeting... held today, the two agreed on establishing an emergency government and war cabinet,” said a joint statement by the premier and Gantz, a former defence minister and army chief.

The three-member “war cabinet” would include Netanyahu, Gantz and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. Gadi Eisenkot, also a former army chief from Gantz’s party, and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer will serve as observers, according to the statement. Opposition leader Yair Lapid has not joined his former ally Gantz, but the statement said a seat would be “reserved” for him in the war cabinet. Netanyahu’s extreme-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish allies would remain in government.

On the other hand, the chairman of the powerful US House Foreign Affairs Committee said that Israel got a warning from Egypt of potential violence three days before Hamas caught Israeli forces off-guard in a large-scale attack. “We know that Egypt has warned the Israelis three days prior that an event like this could happen,” Republican Michael McCaul told reporters following a closed-door intelligence briefing for lawmakers on the crisis. “I don’t want to get too much into classified (details), but a warning was given,” he said. “I think the question was at what level.” McCaul said the attack may have been planned as long as a year ago. “We’re not quite sure how we missed it. We’re not quite sure how Israel missed it,” he told reporters. Cairo has not commented officially on suggestions that it may have offered an early warning. But Egyptian media with close ties to the country’s intelligence services quoted senior security sources denying Israeli press reports that such a warning was issued.

Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Israel was not conducting itself “like a state” in the Gaza Strip.

“Israel should not forget that if it acts more like an organisation rather than a state, it’ll finish by being treated as such,” he said, attacking “shameful methods” of the Israeli army in the densely-populated Gaza Strip.

“Bombing civilian sites, killing civilians, blocking humanitarian aid and trying to present these as achievements are the acts of an organisation and not a state,” he said. “We think that a war should have an ethic and that both parties should respect it. Unfortunately, this principle is gravely violated in Israel and in Gaza,” he said, denouncing the “murders of civilians on Israeli territory” and “the blind massacre of innocents in a Gaza subjected to constant bombardment”. Also, Erdogan has launched a negotiation process with Hamas for the release of Israeli hostages kidnapped by the Palestinian militants, an official source said Wednesday.

“They are negotiating to secure the release of the hostages,” the source said, confirming a report by the private TV channel Haberturk.

The Turkish President, who has offered to mediate to restore peace, has been stepping up talks with his Middle Eastern counterparts. Late Wednesday he spoke with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the Anadolu state news agency reported.

It quoted Erdogan saying that on behalf of Turkey, “we are ready to do everything in our power”, including mediation and “fair arbitration” to end the conflict quickly.