By Peter Hermes Furian @ Shutterstock.com
Israel has surrounded Gaza City and is slowly tightening its encirclement of the Gaza Strip’s most populated area. At The New York Sun, Anthony Grant reports that Israel is now moving in for the kill. He writes:
Hamas’s terrorist goons probably didn’t see this one coming, but the sliver of Mediterranean territory their rule has ruined steadily over the past 16 years is as of now on a divided strip — because by Monday Israeli soldiers had successfully cut the Gaza Strip in two.
During a press conference on Sunday night, the Israel Defense Forces spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said, “Today there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” adding that troops led by the Golani Brigade’s reconnaissance unit, which form part of the 36th Division, had “reached the coastline and are holding it.”
The IDF was also striking Hamas terror infrastructure “below ground and above it” on a continuous basis, Admiral Hagari stated, adding that more than “2,500 terrorist targets have been hit in the Strip” since the start of operations in Gaza and that troops were working “to eliminate terrorists in close combat and air strikes on Hamas infrastructure, weapons depots, observation posts and command and control centers in the Strip.”
The IDF is acting to root out Hamas from its mainly underground base of operations in Gaza City through a three-pronged strategy: opening up corridors for the movement of troops, eliminating hidden hives of resistance, and creating temporary outposts — and all of this is occurring inside the Gaza Strip, which it can be said is now the hottest war zone on the planet.
Underscoring the degree to which Israel is undaunted by the challenges at hand, the IDF’s chief of staff, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, made on Saturday a surprise visit to Israeli troops inside the Gaza Strip. The lieutenant general’s presence in the Strip likely telegraphed a message to Hamas leadership that their time is running out. Last week, speaking at an Israeli air force base, he said that Israeli forces were “in the heart of northern Gaza, operating in Gaza City, surrounding it.”
Read more here.
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