Gaza City was surrounded by the Israeli army .
Military spokesman Daniel Hagari reports this: «Today – his words – we surrounded Gaza City. The Strip is now divided into two sectors: North and South ."
The operation was conducted by the Golani infantry brigade. «They reached the sea, on the southern side, and surrounded Gaza. Now there is North Gaza and South Gaza. We still allow a corridor that allows the population of the northern sector to move south, but it is a corridor with only one direction. Towards the south ."
Once Gaza City is encircled, the division's objective is now "to destroy selected targets, including significant Hamas assets and command and control centers."
We must therefore " reach the operational militiamen who have been pushed into the city and destroy the military and civil government institutions of Hamas ". The goal of destroying Hamas is "possible to achieve" for the Tel Aviv army, but this "will require a long period of time, from several months to a year, or even more ."
To free the area from terrorists we need to act "thoroughly and slowly". At this stage the Israeli units «will refrain from entering the tunnels, on the assumption that they are equipped with booby traps. Each tunnel is operated externally by special forces to avoid putting soldiers in immediate danger and to allow the tunnels to be tackled at a later stage. In some cases, if intelligence deems it appropriate, the air force will strike the tunnel from above, neutralizing anyone inside ."
Among the targets also the Shifa hospital, where according to Israeli intelligence high-ranking members of Hamas are hiding: « At the moment the Israeli army has not given orders to the units to enter the Shifa hospital, but high-ranking officials of the The IDF have not ruled out a military operation in the hospital if it is possible to implement it."
Meanwhile, a barrage of rockets was fired from Gaza which set off the alarm sirens in Tel Aviv, all of which were intercepted by Iron Dome. The Israeli air force is also heavily bombing Gaza.
And there is also tension on the northern front of Israel: "We are ready at any moment to launch an attack," said Israeli Major Herzi Halevi speaking of the situation with Lebanon . Hezbollah continues to launch rockets into Israeli territory, today a civilian died. A Lebanese journalist and four of his family members were also killed in an Israeli raid in southern Lebanon. An episode that unleashed the fury of Hezbollah, whose leader Hasan Nasrallah announced another public speech for Saturday .
Meanwhile, in Baghdad the President of the Palestinian National Authority Abu Mazen met with the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken . "Enough extremist violence against Palestinians in the West Bank" and "Palestinians must not be forcibly displaced", he said, opening to dialogue on the basis of the "two peoples, two states" solution. Blinken, for his part, stressed that the current flow of aid to Gaza is "gravely insufficient" .
(Unioneonline/L)
