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THE BIZNOB – Global Business & Financial News – A Business Journal – Focus On Business Leaders, Technology – Enterpeneurship – Finance – Economy – Politics & LifestyleTHE BIZNOB – Global Business & Financial News – A Business Journal – Focus On Business Leaders, Technology – Enterpeneurship – Finance – Economy – Politics & Lifestyle

Politics

Politics

Hostages in mind, Israel moves slowly in Gaza ground offensive

An Israeli soldier holds a weapon from behind a military vehicle in a location given as Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on October 30, 2023. Israeli Defence Forces/Handout via REUTERS
An Israeli soldier holds a weapon from behind a military vehicle in a location given as Gaza, as the... An Israeli soldier holds a weapon from behind a military vehicle in a location given as Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on October 30, 2023. Israeli Defence Forces/Handout via REUTERS
An Israeli soldier holds a weapon from behind a military vehicle in a location given as Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on October 30, 2023. Israeli Defence Forces/Handout via REUTERS
An Israeli soldier holds a weapon from behind a military vehicle in a location given as Gaza, as the... An Israeli soldier holds a weapon from behind a military vehicle in a location given as Gaza, as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas continues, in this screengrab obtained from a handout video released on October 30, 2023. Israeli Defence Forces/Handout via REUTERS

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According to military experts interviewed by Reuters, one reason Israeli troops are taking their time in their ground attack in Gaza is to maintain the chance of luring Hamas terrorists into negotiations for the release of over 200 captives.

Compared to Israel’s previous land offensives in Gaza and the past three weeks of relentless airstrikes on the Mediterranean enclave, Israeli troops have been relatively cautious in taking and securing portions of territory during the first few days of prolonged ground incursions into Gaza.

According to three Israeli security sources, the strategy of delaying the use of Israel’s ground forces in Gaza’s most populated areas is intended to wear down Hamas leadership over time and create room for potential negotiations over the hostages.

Recovering the captives is an “integral” aspect of the military’s objective in Gaza, according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement last week. Out of the 239 people thought to be detained, many of whom are hidden in a vast network of tunnels, Hamas, the militant Islamist organization in charge of Gaza, has so far freed four of them.

During the ground operation in Gaza, troops liberated one Israeli soldier held captive by Hamas, the military announced on Monday.

According to a former senior officer who wished to remain anonymous, the army also thought that by going slowly, it would be able to protect the flanks of Israeli forces and lure Hamas terrorists out of tunnels or more populated regions so that they would confront Israeli forces in wide spaces where they would be more readily eliminated.

Due to the sensitive nature of the subject, an Israeli military spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the attack.

“It’s attempting to prevent casualties and eliminate as many Hamas terrorists as possible, inch by inch, meter by meter,” Amos Yadlin, the former head of Israel’s defense intelligence, stated to reporters.

After Hamas fighters invaded Israel on October 7, the worst day in the country’s 75-year history, 1,400 people—mostly civilians—were killed. This spurred Israel to launch a massive counterattack. According to Israel, 239 people were seized as hostages and are thought to be being kept captive in Hamas’ vast network of tunnels in Gaza.

In the three weeks since the Hamas assault, Israeli airstrikes have destroyed large portions of Gaza, killing over 8,000 people—including over 3,000 children, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry—and cutting off supplies of gasoline, food, and medicine.

Leaders of Hamas have declared that a truce is necessary to free civilian captives, which Israel claims include individuals holding passports from twenty-five different nations. In exchange for one Israeli soldier, Hamas arranged the release of more than 1,000 Palestinian inmates in Israel in 2011.

Major nations this week urged Israel to provide “humanitarian pauses” so that assistance could enter and captives could be released, voicing their growing dismay at the state of affairs in Gaza. In the first open rift between Israel and its partners since October 7, Israel rejected the pleas, claiming that any pause in hostilities would help Hamas.

Former defense minister and current member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, Benny Gantz, stated on Saturday that “there is no diplomatic ticking clock in this war.”

According to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Israel is hitting Hamas “above and underground—from the air, land, and sea,” and the conflict will last a long time. Netanyahu refrained from referring to the ground assault as a full-scale invasion on Saturday.

SURFACE OF GAZA CITY

Following the concentration of thousands of troops, including reservists, along the border with Gaza, Israel launched the campaign’s first persistent ground assaults on Friday.

According to top spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the government has given the Israeli military two goals: to free the captives and destroy Hamas’ operational capabilities and infrastructure.

With the support of helicopters and drones, tanks and armored personnel carriers have advanced into the semi-rural area north of Gaza City, the main urban center of the territory.

Additionally, locals and the Shehab news agency, which is connected with Hamas, said on Monday that forces had penetrated the southern part of the city, posing a danger to Salah Al Deen Road. This primary transportation route traverses the 40-kilometer stretch.

Fighters and locals said that the tanks encountered opposition while traveling. The Israeli military declared that it would not disclose the exact whereabouts of its soldiers.

A senior spokesman for Islamic Jihad, a minor terrorist group affiliated with Hamas, Abu Ahmad, claimed that aside from moving into open areas, Israeli soldiers had not achieved any significant progress.

Hagari claimed that more troops and armored soldiers, supported by combat engineers and artillery, had been dispatched and were now on the ground, battling Hamas rebels. He refused to confirm the whereabouts of any troops.

He stated at a routine briefing on Monday that “the offensive activity will continue with determination and intensify according to the phases of the war and its goals.”

TUNNEL RISKS

Security sources have referred to Hamas’ extensive network of tunnels in Gaza as an underground metropolis with rocket launch pads, command centers, and routes for attacks directed at Israeli forces.

Ground forces were also instructed to find air vents and escape hatches leading to tunnel entrances and to throw explosives inside to shut them up, according to Omri Attar, a reserve major in a special operations brigade. He claimed that other special forces of the Combat Engineering Corps, which had previously used robots and dogs, would handle any battle inside the tunnels.

“It is a very complicated situation, and I’m not talking about the number of dead or the number of kidnapped; namely, the infrastructure of the lower city, of the tunnels, is a very delicate situation,” he stated.

Several terrorists were “identified exiting the shaft of a tunnel in the Gaza Strip” by Israeli soldiers on October 29, when they were stationed close to the Erez border.

The Israeli military said that “after the identification, the soldiers confronted the terrorists, killing and injuring them.”

The strategy used thus far differs from other Israeli offensives on Gaza, a 2.3 million-person primarily urban strip of territory that was attacked in 2008, 2014, and 2021 by Israel in retaliation for Hamas and Islamic Jihad’s vow to destroy Israel.

When Israeli troops moved their enormous force into densely populated areas in 2008, Hamas was forced to retreat and re-engage on occasion.

The Israeli military is aware of the risks associated with Gaza’s densely populated regions and the risks associated with deploying large forces there. Israel lost nine troops in its 2008 raid, highlighting the dangers. The number of deaths skyrocketed to 66 in 2014.

Since October 7, 315 Israeli soldiers have died, the majority of them as a result of the initial Hamas strikes, according to the most recent data provided by the Israeli military.

In 2014, Ben Milch, a commander in the Combat Engineering Corps entrusted with tunnel destruction, stated that their objective was limited to venturing no farther than two kilometers into the network at that point.

“Where we only had to take out tens of tunnels, today’s challenge is going to be hundreds of tunnels and kilometers upon kilometers and a real underground fortress that Hamas has built,” he stated to Reuters.

Other challenges in tunnel clearance were the need to decide whether to close ventilation shafts and the handling of hostages.

“In my opinion, that’s why the IDF (Israeli military) is taking a methodical, slower approach to make sure that they’re covering all their bases and making sure that they eliminate the tunnels as they go, so they’re not going to be ambushed from behind, from the side, and so on,” Milch stated.

“We don’t want to lose soldiers, so we’re going to go slow, and we’re going to make sure that we minimize casualties as best as possible.”


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