Israel‘s government officially declared war late yesterday and gave the green light to carry out “significant military measures” against the Hamas group, seemingly pointing to an imminent large-scale ground offensive in the Gaza Strip for which the Israeli army is already amassing large numbers of troops and tanks on the border. More than 24 hours after Hamas launched an unprecedented surprise offensive into Israeli territory, Israeli security forces were still battling yesterday members of the radical Palestinian group infiltrated in several Israeli towns.
The latest casualty count brings to more than 800 the number of Israelis killed in just two days of conflict, while the number of Palestinians killed exceeds 300. At the site of the Supernova music festival that was being held near the Gaza border on Saturday, when it was attacked by armed Hamas members, Israeli authorities announced last night that they had found the bodies of 260 victims from several countries, all of them young people attending the festival.
Israel is preparing for a war that, in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s own words, “will be long, difficult and painful”, for which he ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza on Monday, cutting off electricity and food supplies, after Israeli authorities called on Palestinians in the Strip to leave the area “for their own safety”. “There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is blocked (in the direction of Gaza),” said Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, who has vowed to “change the reality on the ground in Gaza for the next 50 years“. Meanwhile, the United Nations estimates that more than 123,000 Palestinians have been displaced so far by the bombardment on Gaza, where Israeli army have bombed more than 500 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in the last few hours.
VOTE
EDITORIAL TEAM
🧿 About us
.
Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
…
📣 Your ADVERTISING on Hispanatolia
.
🤗 HELP US WITH A DONATION:
💗 Paypal
