The Israeli occupation army is preparing to invade the Gaza Strip by land, with increasing fears of the expansion of fighting in the region, after the situation flared up on the Lebanese border.
The American newspaper "The New York Times", citing officials in the occupation army, reported that preparations for the ground operation in Gaza are currently underway and are expected to begin within days.
The newspaper quoted occupation officers as saying, “The invasion was initially scheduled to take place today, Sunday, but was postponed for a few days, at least in part, due to weather conditions that would have made it difficult for Israeli pilots and drone operators to provide air cover for ground forces.”
Ground attack plan
The occupation army shared with the American newspaper unclassified details about the ground operation plan in the Gaza Strip, which showed that the operation will begin in the coming days, and Israel also plans to send tens of thousands of soldiers to seize Gaza City.
The occupation army announced that its ultimate goal is to eliminate the highest political and military hierarchy of the Palestinian resistance that controls Gaza, and led the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation that took place last week in the settlements surrounding Gaza, and resulted in the death of 1,300 Israelis.
According to three senior officers in the occupation army, the New York Times reported that the attack is expected to be Israel's largest ground operation since its invasion of Lebanon in 2006, and it will also be the first in which Israel attempts to seize territory and hold it for at least a short period since its invasion of the Strip in 2008.
Risks of land invasion
The New York Times notes that the ground operation in the Gaza Strip “risks plunging Israel into months of bloody urban fighting, whether above ground or in an area of tunnels, a risky attack that Israel has long avoided because it involves fighting on a plot of land.” It is narrow and crowded, inhabited by more than two million people.
The newspaper's report indicated that the occupation army has not yet officially announced its intention to invade the Gaza Strip, although it confirmed that reconnaissance teams entered the Strip briefly on Friday and that Israeli forces are increasing their "preparedness" for a ground war.
According to the newspaper, “It is believed that tens of thousands of resistance militants have holed up inside hundreds of miles of tunnels and bunkers under Gaza City and its surrounding parts in northern Gaza.”
The occupation officers expect that the Palestinian resistance will try to obstruct their progress by blowing up some of these tunnels as the Israelis advance over them, and by detonating bombs planted on the sides of the roads and booby-trapping buildings.
The occupation officers added, "Hamas is also planning to ambush Israeli forces from behind by suddenly emerging from the openings of hidden tunnels spread throughout northern Gaza."
Due to the widespread damage inflicted on Gaza City by the ongoing Israeli air strikes, the “commando” forces in the occupation army received additional training in recent days to help them fight in devastated urban environments, according to what the New York Times quoted Colonel in the occupation army, Golan Fakh, as saying.
Israeli and Western officials and analysts warned of Israel's plan to launch a ground aggression against Gaza, and doubted the army's ability to confront Hamas on land.
The American newspaper "Washington Post" reported that launching a ground attack on Gaza "seems a terrifying and impossible task," and the Israeli newspaper "Haaretz" said that "the army is not prepared and is not logistically equipped for a ground operation in Gaza."
The fighting expands
Also, the occupation army’s ground operation in Gaza threatens the expansion of the fighting and the intervention of other parties, as the Iranian mission to the United Nations warned, late yesterday evening, Saturday, that if the “war crimes and genocide” committed by Israel are not stopped, In Gaza immediately, “the situation could get out of control” and have far-reaching consequences.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met with Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah on a visit to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, yesterday, Saturday.
Abdullahian said, in a briefing to reporters in Beirut, that “Hezbollah has prepared several escalation scenarios that could cause an earthquake in Israel... This will change the map of the occupied territories.”
The Iranian Foreign Minister met, in Beirut, with the United Nations envoy to the Middle East, Tor Wensland, and the Hebrew “Walla” website revealed, quoting a diplomatic source, that Iran informed the UN envoy that it is not interested in turning the conflict in Gaza into a regional war, but that it will respond if it continues. Israeli army operation in Gaza.
According to Walla, citing a diplomatic source, the Iranian Foreign Minister confirmed that his country has red lines and will be forced to respond if the Israeli army’s operation in Gaza continues.
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has asked the Lebanese Hezbollah group not to start a war on a second front, threatening to "destroy Lebanon" if it does so.
The Israeli occupation army imposed a buffer zone up to 4 kilometers from the Lebanese border, and ordered civilians not to enter, after 5 Israelis were injured in a shooting that took place in Shtoula in the Western Galilee, on the border with Lebanon.
The Hebrew media confirmed that a number of anti-tank missiles and missiles hit a number of occupation soldiers, wounding 5, including two in serious danger.
Yesterday afternoon, Saturday, the echoes of artillery rockets and small arms fire reverberated across the mountains in the occupied Shebaa Farms area, in the longest exchange of fire between the occupation army and Hezbollah, to date.
The Israeli army said that 30 mortar shells were fired from inside Lebanon at Israel, while Hezbollah issued a statement saying that its fighters used precision weapons to target five Israeli sites, including a surveillance site.
The Source
- Agencies