According to a report published by the Palestine Chronicle, the Israeli military’s Chief of Staff Major General Herzi Halevi has reminded his troops that Tel Aviv was in a “prolonged” war and that no measures by Hamas would derail their mission.
The following report is reprinted from the Palestine Chronicle:
“We are in a war that we said at the beginning would be prolonged. Years of defense have been dug in here, and it is not dismantled in a week or a month,” Halevi stated, according to Israeli media reports, during a visit to Jabaliya in the central Gaza Strip on Tuesday.
Accompanied by other senior military officials, Halevi “conducted a situational assessment and tour of the area,” reported the Israeli i24news site.
He vowed that the military was to carry out “dangerous” missions to recover the bodies of captives.
“The mission… is to kill as many (Hamas) commanders as possible, as many terrorists as possible, to destroy the infrastructure,” he is quoted as saying by The Times of Israel. “This pressure… will also help us to bring hostages alive and we are ready to carry out dangerous and complicated operations to bring the bodies of our hostages back to be buried in Israel.”
Fierce Clashes
The i24 news site also reported that Halevi said: “Even if there was a place we did not reach last time, and we are now reaching it, it is not a place that will withstand an attack by the IDF’s anti-tank missile system, no matter how many charges are in the wall or how many shafts are captured.”
The Israeli army launched a ground offensive in the Jabalia refugee camp and its surrounding areas on May 12, which was expanded three days later amid fierce battles with Palestinian resistance groups.
Israeil sources, cited in Al-Jazeera admitted that in a single attack 20 occupation soldiers were killed or wounded after a booby-trapped building in Jabaliya was detonated with Israeli forces inside.
Over 35,000 Killed
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 35,709 Palestinians have been killed, and 79,990 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 11,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli war has resulted in an acute famine, mostly in northern Gaza, resulting in the death of many Palestinians, mostly children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire’.
