Israel Widens Efforts in Gaza, as Hamas Hoardes Food and Fuel From Civilians
Jerusalem Post: “IDF strikes Hamas through air, land, and sea.”
The Israeli ground forces have entered Hamas-controlled Gaza and were conducting ground operations using infantry, tanks and armored vehicles, the Israeli military and Palestinian sources confirm Saturday morning.
“IDF ground troops are expanding their efforts inside Gaza to dismantle the Hamas terrorist infrastructure, IDF Spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari said Friday evening,” the Jerusalem Post reported Saturday. “Palestinian media reported that Israeli tanks assumed positions within the Gaza Strip late on Friday.”
Exactly three weeks after Hamas terrorists murdered 1,400 and took 229 Israelis captive in a sneak attack, the Islamist-controlled Gaza was facing the full might of the Israeli armed forces. “IDF strikes Hamas through air, land, and sea,” the Israeli newspaper added.
The widening of the operation comes after IDF carried of its first major ground raid on Thursday night. The troops, tanks and armored vehicles retreated after a brief strike — seen as a shaping operation before a full-fledged Gaza ground offensive.
Video activity of the IDF Ground Forces in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/FWt0pFO53q
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 28, 2023
The IDF reportedly disabled the internet and mobile connectivity across the terrorist-controlled territory, suggesting the start of a new phase in the military operation.
“Israel knocked out internet and communications in the Gaza Strip in stepped-up bombardment Friday night, … creating a near-blackout of information, as the military said it was “expanding” ground operations in the territory,” the Associated Press noted Saturday.
The IDF on Saturday renewed its call for Gaza residents to evacuate designated battle zones. Since past two weeks, the Israeli military has been dropping leaflets, sending text messages and using other means of communication to guide Gaza civilians to safety. Recent reports indicate that Hamas has been setting up roadblocks and shooting as civilians fleeing war zone.
An urgent message for the residents of Gaza: pic.twitter.com/GAW3a7lWt8
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 28, 2023
IDF hits Gaza terror targets, eliminates Hamas commanders
Meanwhile, the Israeli military is keep up the pressure on the terrorists in Gaza, conducted night-time strikes at Hamas targets, hitting command and control centers, weapons depots and underground compounds. “Overnight, IDF fighter jets struck 150 underground targets in the northern Gaza Strip, including terror tunnels, underground combat spaces and additional underground infrastructure. Furthermore, several Hamas terrorists were killed,” the IDF said in a statement released Saturday morning.
Israeli security forces on Saturday eliminated the head of Hamas’ naval forces, days after terrorists carried out a failed maritime attempt to infiltrate thee Israeli coast near the southern town on Zikim. “Based on IDF and ISA intelligence, IDF fighter jets struck Ratib Abu Tzahiban, Commander of Hamas’ Naval Forces of the Gaza City Brigade,” the IDF disclosed in a separate statement. “Tzahiban planned and commanded the naval infiltration attempt carried out on October 24th, which was thwarted by Israeli naval forces.”
The Israeli military also admitted taking out the head of Hamas’s drone and aerial warfare. Hamas terrorists had used paragliders to breach the Israeli airspace to carry out the October 7 mass-murder. “The IDF announced on Saturday morning that the military, guided by precise intelligence information from the Air Force and the Shin Bet internal security service, killed the head of the air formation of the terrorist organization Hamas, Ezzam Abu Raffa, who was responsible for managing the UAV arrays, the drones, the aerial detection, the paragliders, and the air defense of the Hamas organization,” the Israeli TV channel i24NEWS reported.
There were also reports of Israeli airstrikes inside terrorist Hezbollah-controlled Lebanon amid repeated rocket attacks and attempted incursions. “A short while ago, the IDF thwarted a surface-to-air missile that was fired from Lebanon toward an IDF UAV. In response, the IDF is striking the origin of the missile’s fire,” the IDF said in a statement on Saturday morning.
Iron Dome Tamir interceptors launched against the latest salvo of rockets from Gaza. pic.twitter.com/0meGNK0AIP
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) October 27, 2023
Hamas wants Muslim world to force Israel to stop military operation
Hamas, the terrorist group which hides behind civilians and recruits child soldiers, is now calling upon the Islamic countries to pressure Israel to stop the counter-terror operation three weeks after its terrorists murdered, mutilated and raped innocent Israeli civilians.
The i24NEWS reported Saturday:
“We call on the Arab and Muslim countries and the international community to take responsibility and act immediately to stop the crimes and series of massacres against our people,” Hamas said in a statement.
Hamas-ISIS is sick.
They turn hospitals into headquarters for their terror.
We just released intelligence proving it.
Here it is: pic.twitter.com/F82OxaIPN6
— Benjamin Netanyahu – בנימין נתניהו (@netanyahu) October 27, 2023
The call comes days after PLO-controlled Palestinian Authority urged the Biden administration and the European countries to “pressure” Israel to halt its offensive as more than 200 Israeli hostages, among them women, elderly and toddlers, languish in Hamas captivity.
The state-owned France24 TV channel reported Thursday:
In an interview with FRANCE 24 on Day 20 of the Israel-Hamas conflict, a spokesman for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on the Biden administration “to pressure Israel to stop this war”. Nabil Abu Rudeineh also said that the current conflict was “an opportunity for us, for the Israelis, for the Europeans and the Americans” to reach a “two-state” solution in the Middle East.
Hamas Hoarding Food and Fuel
As the world demands a ceasefire due to shortages of food and fuel, Hamas is sitting on a huge stockpile it keeps from civilians, the NY Times reports:
As supplies of virtually every basic human necessity dwindle in Gaza, one group in the besieged enclave remains well-stocked: Hamas….
Hamas has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets; caches of ammunition, explosives and materials to make more; and stockpiles of food, water and medicine, the officials said. A senior Lebanese official said Hamas, which is estimated to number between 35,000 and 40,000, had enough stocked away to keep fighting for three to four months without resupply.
🚨JUST IN: The IDF release an alleged recording of a Gaza Energy Official admitting Hamas:
1. Have significant fuel reserves, and not supplying enough to the hospitals
2. Still control Gaza
3. Have half a million liters of fuel underground
4. Have oxygen, phones, showers and… pic.twitter.com/QK0VyoNZYa
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) October 28, 2023
Netanyahu vows ‘to defeat the murderous enemy, ensure our existence in our land’
At a press conference on Saturday evening, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu formally announced the beginning of the ground offensive. The aim of the military operation was the “destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities; and returning the hostages home,” he declared.
The Times of Israel reported:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the second stage of the war against Hamas has begun with the entrance of more ground forces into Gaza last night.
At a press conference in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu says Israel’s war aims are clear — “destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities; and returning the hostages home.”
Netanyahu says the decision to begin the ground incursion was made unanimously, both by the war cabinet and the security cabinet.
“Our commanders and soldiers fighting in enemy territory know that the nation and the national leadership stand behind them,” he adds.
Netanyahu says the troops that he has met in the field are determined to make Hamas pay for its actions on October 7.
“They are determined to eradicate this evil from the world, for our existence and, I add, for all of humanity,” he says.
The premier quotes the biblical injunction to remember what the Amalekites did to the Israelites. “We remember, and we are fighting.”
Netanyahu says the soldiers are part of a legacy of Jewish warriors that goes back 3,000 years. He stresses that they have one goal: “To defeat the murderous enemy, and to ensure our existence in our land.”
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This NYT story has been picked up elsewhere too. HAMAS is fighting a religious war and fully intends for Gazans to fight it or at least understand it well enough to be glad to die along side the terror group. Maybe. Hopefully Gazans have been providing the IDF with much more intelligence than we know about. The tunnels that have been dug over the years are not crude but elaborate and extremely well fortified. Since supplies have been diverted from the Gazan people to Hamas, their ability to hold out is great.
One commenter described what the IDF was about to engage in is called ‘spelunking’ or standing in shallow water, jab your hand down into bottom and hopefully yank up a surprised catfish and not an angry snapping turtle or a grenade. Maybe the IDF rethinks a massive assault and figures since the terrorists are already under ground, figure out how best to leave them there permanently. Let future archealogists discover their remains. This reduces IDF casualties and deprives western media of much coveted photos of suffering Gazans.
Spelunking is what “caving” is often called in the US and Canada. It is cave exploration. Noodling is catching catfish (and occasionally a rude surprise) by sticking your hand in holes in a river/lake where catfish tend to settle.
You’re right. Sorry.
Youtube Hannah Barron.
Yeah! She even speaks good English…..
Speaking of good English… there is no such word as “hoardes” (headline).
There is “hoards,” and there is “hordes,” and they are nowhere near the same thing.
Hamas spelunkers are anxious to learn more about the sponge bombs IDF has been working on. If all goes as planned, Hamas will soon find the doors on their caves made of solid sponge. They aren’t going like it, but I have to admit, I can’t knock it.
If it’s the expanding foam stuff, we RVers find it extremely effective at keeping rats out of our rigs. Can you keep rats out of your country with it? Let’s see!
Ya know..you may have something there with the expanding foam………when one of my boys was a senior in high school, he and another kid pumped school door locks full of that stuff for their senior prank.
All the locks had to be replaced and those involved almost didn’t graduate. (They had to pay for the replacements ..fast forward to today. He is now a criminal defense attorney….go figure)
….but anyway, that stuff really fills up some empty space!
How about a whole bunch of diesel fuel pumped into the tunnel network and just light it up? Provide a warning to the ‘civilians’ who know damn well there’s a tunnel if not an entrance under their location. They can either clear out or not and no whining about Hamas won’t let them. That’s on Hamas and no one else so direct that crap to Hamas.
That would leave a long lasting glow that the media could film.
Diesel … gas … I wonder if the military has any application of rapid-expanding foam?
UN, EU and US aid money goes straight to Hamas, has been for a long time.
Yes, dirty business just like Eastern Europe is always dirty business.
I wonder if the people of Gaza regret voting Hamas into power.
I wonder if Hamas regrets the slaughter they perpetrated on October 7th…
I think the answer to both is “no”. We can never understand the fanaticism and the brainwashing from birth these people have
Probably not.
Like us, they just wish “the right people” were in charge instead of the clowns there now.
Not a chance in Hell. Hamas was popularly elected by a majority of Arab Muslim “Palestinian” residents of Gaza precisely because the group promised its backers that it would wage a more uncompromising, deadly and successful jihadist campaign against Israeli Jews, than its predecessor, Fatah/the Palestinian Authority. Fatah lost favor in Gaza because it was viewed as being weak, ineffectual and allegedly insufficiently devoted to Palestinian “resistance.”
Hamas’s charter explicitly states its genocidal aims against Jews and Israel. These thugs have made no effort to mask or hide their evil aims and intent.
In that sense, one can at least concede that Hamas has kept its bloody campaign promises.
Yup.
Unfortunately, I suspect the IDF is going to have to channel their inner Scipio Africanus Minor and go total Carthage 146 BC on northern Gaza to succeed militarily.
But Hamas wanted total war . . . this is what that looks like.
An apt historical reference. Israel must do what is necessary to defeat Hamas and its Qatari and Iranian enablers and financiers. I’ll offer a contemporary military analogy — deal with these goose-stepping, Islamofascist terrorist thugs the same way the Allies treated National Socialist Germany and Imperial Japan.
I only wish that European nations and the U.S. possessed the same moral clarity, at this moment.
Israel released some phone transcriptions of Hamas calling home on Oct 7th and it showed all their family members supported them and were very proud of them killing Jews.
Hamas are not some disparate group who took over Gaza. They are merely the Palestinians of Gaza who are of fighting age. Their big brothers were Hamas before them. Their little brothers and their sons will be Hamas after them. And all their friends, neighbors, relatives, etc support them because they are all on the same team.
Sad but probably true for a great many of them.
In the news all day were videos of Hamas supporters marching and chanting in NYC and London as well as many other cities in the US and Europe.
It seems that most of the immigrants in this country from Muslim nations are virulently anti Israel and anti western culture. I even saw a social media post from someone I know attending and participating in a pro Hamas demonstration in OKC.
I’m not a great military strategist but I would have advised not supplying your enemy with fuel and food. This is due to Biden’s interference. Israel is lucky there was no stain of a Biden presidency in the 60s and 70s.
Or, an Obama presidency — equally malignant, destructive and morally bankrupt/feckless as Biden’s, if not more so.
More so. Obama would have done all he could to undermine Israel just as he did when he tried to help the Muslim Brotherhood seize power in Egypt.
“Hoard’ plural is just ‘s’ not ‘es’.
Well thank you for that correction. It changes the whole meaning of the story….
Why do you apparently have a problem with using correct spelling or grammar? Should someone just give a pass to incorrect English usage, thereby assisting the spread of sloppy use of the language? Is it a badge of honor to display an inability to correctly write and/or speak English, or indicate a lack of proofreading?
Sorry I didn’t know you were so sensitive. Don’t worry it’s not personal.
If it were my headline, I would appreciate someone catching what is probably a typo.
The supremacist, totalitarian, belligerent, hate-filled and pathology-laden ideology of “Submission” is the problem, as are its most fanatical, goose-stepping and fascistic adherents, and, their European, Leftist dhimmi and American Dhimmi-crat enablers, collaborators, appeasers and apologists.
Anyone who thinks this is about Israel and fallacious and alleged Israeli transgressions against Arab Muslim “Palestinians” hasn’t been paying attention to Islamic tenets and the 1,400-year history of Muslim supremacism, warfare, genocides and atrocities carried out against non-Muslims worldwide, since that wretched ideology’s founding.
I could’ve wrote that. Well, I could. Almost. Well, pretty close. Okay, slightly close maybe. Oh damn you, That’s the best post I’ve read today.
Thank you for the kind words, Peabody. What I find perplexing and disturbing is how, even after too many Islamofascist terrorist attacks to count committed against the west and Israel, for over fifty years since the 1970’s, not a single European, Leftist dhimmi or American Dhimmi-crat possesses the moral clarity, objectivity and honesty to acknowledge that the Islamic ideology and its innumerable, intrinsic and immutable pathologies –supremacism, totalitarianism, belligerence towards, and, hatred of non-Muslims — are the problem, here.