Though ground forces were involved, they did not enter Gaza, said Lt. Jonathan Conricus, contradicting a statement the night before that a ground assault was underway.
Conricus said the operation targeted a sprawling system of tunnels Hamas has spent years building underneath Gaza’s streets, raising the possibility of significant civilian casualties.
“Unlike our very elaborate efforts to clear civilian areas before we strike high-rises or large buildings inside Gaza, that wasn’t feasible this time,” he said, adding that the operation had targeted Hamas tunnels and infrastructure with “precision-guided munitions."
Here’s what to know:
- Militants in Gaza fired at least 55 rockets overnight, bringing the total to about 1,800, according to the Israeli military.
- After initially saying that its troops were on the ground “in Gaza,” Israel issued a “clarification” saying that was not the case.
- The death toll in Gaza climbed to 119, including 31 children, with 830 wounded, Gaza’s Health Ministry reported.
- Two women died after falling while running for shelter overnight, bringing the number of people killed in Israel to eight civilians and one soldier.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to continue military actions “as long as necessary” and to exact “a very heavy price” on Hamas.
Residents of Gaza City said intense, almost continuous airstrikes began to pound the northern Gaza Strip around midnight.
As Israeli war planes bombed Gaza, two infantry brigades and an armored one approached but did not cross the border, Conricus said. Tanks fired about 50 rounds into the enclave.
“The aim of that joint activity of air and ground forces was to deliver a severe blow to Hamas’s underground tunnel system, which we refer to as the ‘metro,’ which is essentially a city beneath the city of Gaza,” he said. “It is a strategic asset that Hamas has invested many years of effort and time and significant resources to construct.”
It was too soon to say how much of the tunnel system had been destroyed, he said, but added that “quite a lot of enemy combatants" had been killed in the overnight operation.
The scale of the attack was in keeping with Israel’s attempt to destroy as much Hamas military infrastructure as fast as possible, a strategy Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi has characterized as the “victory doctrine.”
“The focus is on direct, precision fire based on live intelligence using air, ground and cyber forces at a fast tempo,” Conricus said.
Despite the sweeping operation, Hamas gave no signs of stopping its rocket attacks, one of which struck the coastal Israeli city of Ashkelon, critically injuring one man and wounding two more, according to the Times of Israel.
“We have much more to give,” a Hamas spokesman known as Abu Obaida said in a televised statement Thursday. “The decision to hit Tel Aviv, Dimona and Jerusalem is easier for us than drinking water. Your technology and assassinations don’t scare us.”
As bombs and rockets rained down, clashes continued in mixed Arab-Jewish towns within Israel.
About 100 people were arrested after clashes Thursday night in cities including Wadi Ara, Umm al Fahm, Beersheba, and Netanya, according to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
In Netanya, police arrested nine Jewish Israelis who were “walking around looking...to beat people up,” he said. In Beersheba, 13 local Arab residents were arrested. In Umm al Fahm, police arrested 11 people who “threw patrol bombs and attacked police officers,” Rosenfeld said. In Tel Aviv, two men carrying iron bars were detained, according to a police statement.
Police also arrested 43 people overnight in Lod, the scene of some of the worst communal violence and riots, for throwing petrol bombs and rocks and attacking police officers, according to Rosenfeld.
Arab citizens of Israel have long accused the Israeli police of one-sided enforcement and not responding to incidents in their neighborhoods during a years-long spike in violence in their communities. In recent days, many have lodged the same complaint against Border Police units — who normally patrol the West Bank and neighborhoods in East Jerusalem under army control — that have been deployed throughout Israel to help quell the rioting. Arabs say the officers have turned out in forces against Arab protesters but have been largely absent when Jewish mobs and riots break out.
“The Border Police are responding to every incident that takes place on the ground,” Rosenfeld said in response, including incidents where “innocent civilians are under life threatening situations.”
In a nationally televised speech, Netanyahu warned that the civil unrest put the Israel in the position of fighting “a campaign on two fronts,” one of which was Gaza.
“The second front: Israel’s cities,” he said, repeating his vow from a day earlier to deploy the military to prevent the “anarchy” of mob violence seen in several cities this week.
“I again call on the citizens of Israel not to take the law into their own hands; whoever does so will be punished severely,” he said. “We will act with full force against enemies from without and lawbreakers from within in order to restore calm to the state of Israel.”
As diplomats from the Middle East, Europe and the United States tried to broker a cease-fire before the conflict spiraled even further, U.N. Secretary General António Guterres called for calm, citing Thursday’s Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
“Out of respect for the spirit of Eid, I appeal for an immediate de-escalation and cessation of hostilities in Gaza and Israel,” he tweeted. “Too many innocent civilians have already died. This conflict can only increase radicalization and extremism in the whole region.”
The current conflict was triggered after clashes earlier this month in Jerusalem among Palestinians, Israeli police and right-wing Jews. Tensions have been running high, in part, because of efforts by Israeli settlers to evict several Palestinian families from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Those tensions boiled over on Monday, when clashes near al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City between Israeli police and Arab protesters left more than 300 Palestinians injured.
Israeli officials anticipated additional clashes at the mosque on Friday, when thousands of Muslim worshipers are expected to attend prayers.
Conricus apologized for the conflicting information over whether Israeli ground troops had entered Gaza, which would have been a significant escalation. Israeli troops last entered Gaza en masse during a two-month war in 2014, when more than 2,200 Gazans were killed.
“There was an internal miscommunication for which I … take personal responsibility,” he said. “These things can sometimes happen in the midst of a complex operation with many moving parts and with an unclear picture of what was happening.”
Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted a drone launched from Gaza overnight, the second such interception this week, Cornicus said.
“We know that Hamas is trying new tactics constantly," he said. “One of them is the use of drones."
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Israeli forces hit Hamas tunnels in Gaza as all-out war looms; more rockets rain down - The Washington Post
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