Benjamin Netanyahu meets Israeli troops near the border as a ground invasion appears imminent. Photo: Avi Oyon
Israel is preparing an attack on Hamas “from the air, from the sea and from the land,” as Benjamin Netanyahu said that “the next stage is coming.”
The Israeli Prime Minister made it clear that a ground offensive in Gaza is imminent as he visited foot soldiers close to the border on Saturday.
The video shows Mr. Netanyahu, wearing military-style bulletproof vests, asking Israeli troops: “Are you ready for the next phase? The next stage is coming.”
Shortly after, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it was preparing for a “significant ground operation” in the Gaza Strip as part of a “broad range of offensive operational plans.” «, including «joint and coordinated attack from air, sea and land.»
Writing in The Telegraph, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said Britain's support for Israel's right to self-defense «must not fade as the reality of fighting an enemy hiding in tunnels and among civilian homes, schools and hospitals takes shape.» /p>
He added: “It is not our words that are being tested now, but our actions in the coming weeks.”
Columns of tanks were seen moving towards the Gaza Strip on Saturday, and the sounds of drones were heard overhead in the border area.
The IDF announced that it had completed the draft of 360,000 reservists and that bases had been established near the border to equip soldiers with the weapons they needed to fight.
The spokesman said the military's goal was to «completely destroy Hamas' government and military capabilities «
Forces in the north are at «full readiness», the spokesman added, warning the operation would take «a long time».
Writing in The Telegraph, Mr Dowden said : “The government is determined not just to say that Israel has the right to defend itself, but to demonstrate it.
“We have deployed P8 aircraft, surveillance assets and two Royal Navy ships to provide practical support to Israel and partners in the region, and we support them through intelligence sharing.”
>Additionally, Tzipi Hotovely, Ambassador Israel in Britain, The Telegraph said: “The coming days and weeks will be difficult.
“Hamas' inhumanity knows no bounds. We have seen evidence of this: the beheaded, burned, murdered and raped bodies of innocent Israelis.
“Israel will do everything possible to ensure that Hamas can never again make another Israeli suffer.” . The only way to do this is to destroy Hamas' capabilities and infrastructure.
“Hamas is responsible for the tragic innocent loss of life we are seeing, both Israeli and Palestinian. Nobody else. Hamas.»
Tzachi Hanegbi, Israel's national security adviser, said that between 150 and 200 Israeli hostages remained in the Gaza Strip.
After Hamas is overthrown, Israel will find «an alternative to rule in Gaza that poses no threat.» he added.
Preparations for the invasion of Gaza began after a day of chaos across the 140-square-mile area, with tens of thousands of people fleeing south to escape.
Video footage confirmed The BBC has shown several bodies scattered along one of the exit roads after the strike on Friday.
Israel accused Hamas of setting up roadblocks to prevent citizens from fleeing, and the terror group's leader Ismail Haniyeh said Gazans would not go to Egypt.
«Our decision is to stay on our land,» he said. said.
Hamas published a video of militants firing rocket-propelled grenades at tanks, under the caption: “Here what awaits you in Gaza.”
The Israeli military last invaded the Gaza Strip in 2014 and encountered a dense network of tunnels and booby traps containing up to 30,000 Hamas terrorists.
On Saturday, the German Air Force announced it was sending two planes to evacuate . its citizens are from Israel, and all-out war will soon break out.
In an apparent attempt to prevent an invasion, Iran's foreign minister warned that Israel would face attack from Iranian proxies if it crossed into the Gaza Strip. , saying there were only a few hours left to avoid a larger fire.
Pro-Iranian proxies such as the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah are “ready and their finger is on the trigger,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said.
Iran has warned Israel that it will intervene in the war if the Gaza operation will continue, reports US news site Axios. It is reported that the warning was transmitted through the UN.
After pledging to support Israel's right to self-defense, US President Joe Biden appeared concerned about the broader impact that an imminent ground invasion would have on the Middle East.
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On Saturday, Mr Biden said he was working with Israel, Egypt, Jordan and the United Nations «to increase support to ease the humanitarian impact of the Hamas attack, create the conditions necessary to resume the flow of aid, and advocate for respect for the law.» war.»
It came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was on the phone with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, trying to persuade Beijing to help prevent the conflict from spreading. The intervention by Mr Dowden, a close ally of Rishi Sunak, came as the moment the Prime Minister pledged to support Israel — a position repeatedly stated by Cabinet ministers and by Sir Keir Starmer, the Labor Party leader, who said: «Israel does have a right to a duty to defend itself and rescue these hostages.»
< p>However, some members of the Labor Party frontbench have begun warning of «serious concerns» about the impact of the IDF's order for more than a million Palestinians to move to southern Gaza.
Amid fears that clear support for Sir Keir will weaken at lower levels of the party, it has emerged that the Labor Party leadership has urged MPs and councilors not to attend demonstrations linked to the conflict.
Where Labor Party members attend protests, they should not wave Labor flags, party general secretary David Evans said in an email to voters.
Martin Griffiths, the U.N. aid chief, said the situation in the Gaza Strip was “fast becoming intolerable.”
He said families were bombed as they «moved slowly south along congested, damaged roads.»
It comes as the European Union announced it would immediately triple its aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza to an additional £43 billion, amid warnings that the population is rapidly running out of water.
In Conversation with The Telegraph from Gaza via voice note Nihal, a 33-year-old mother, said: “We don’t want this war. We are just civilians. We always pay the price for every aggression.”
She said the taps had dried up in the house she fled to in Khan Yunis after leaving Gaza City. Stores in the southern city were also running low on bottled water, according to local sources.
Meanwhile, families and friends of Israeli hostages in the Gaza Strip demonstrated outside IDF headquarters on Saturday, calling for the army to bring them back alive.< /p>
“I want my daughter to come home now, I want my daughter to sleep in her bed now,” said Shira Albag, whose 19-year-old daughter Liri, a soldier, was kidnapped by Hamas militants on October 7 .
When asked if she held the demonstration because she was afraid that otherwise the hostages would be forgotten, she replied: “Of course. I'll stay here until my daughter comes home.»
The group, co-directed by Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, announced on Saturday that it plans to prosecute UK government officials for «aiding and abetting» war crimes in the Gaza Strip.»
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