Two days after ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel broke down, the Jewish state launched a major offensive in Gaza Sunday and unleashed its 10,000th airstrike since the Hamas terror attacks of Oct. 7. Hundreds of targets have been hit:
Israel said more than 400 targets in northern Gaza have been struck since Friday, with the Hamas-run Ministry of Health stating that at least 700 people have been killed in the renewed bombings, one of the highest daily death tolls recorded since the war began.
As of Sunday, Gaza’s Ministry of Health estimates that more than 15,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed as a result of the war.
As we’ve noted previously, however, the numbers out of the Gaza Ministry of Health are not to be trusted because the entity is controlled by Hamas, which has a history of misinformation and outright lies.
“The Israeli army has made every effort upholding our obligations under international law to get civilians out of harm’s way,” Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy told reporters Sunday.
Not surprisingly, Israel Defense Forces keep finding more Hamas tunnels:
Every tunnel shaft and weapon we find is further proof of how Hamas deliberately uses the residents of Gaza for their terrorist agenda against Israelis.
IDF posted to social media about their operations:
IDF naval troops struck Hamas terrorist targets: terrorist infrastructure, vessels belonging to Hamas’ naval forces and weapons.
As Biden and other world leaders harangue Israel and Prime Minister Netanyahu to avoid civilian casualties, the IDF has actually gone to extraordinary lengths to protect civilians when possible, often exposing themselves to further danger.
Hamas, of course, does everything in its power to expose civilians to risk so they can get sympathy from the outside world:
“[Hamas’] M.O. is deliberately to use the civilian realm for their own human shield protection in the most cynical ways,” IDF Lt. Col. Amnon Shefler told reporters at the Israeli embassy in Washington this week.
“I can show you endless amounts of pictures and videos of how rockets are being manufactured in schools, hosted in schools, shot from schools, mosques and homes. We’ve found rockets and ammunition underneath baby girls’ beds and also in hospitals, sadly,” he added.
Shefler further described some of the things IDF does, including telling civilians in advance which areas to clear out of, to try to keep non-combatants safe:
For example, the IDF has sent ground forces to clear Hamas hubs hidden in civilian infrastructure and below ground – a strategy the Israeli military has learned as a best practice from previous clashes.
“For many years, we have been building our special forces to be able to carry out these kinds of missions based on very accurate intelligence,” he said. “Going to very, very specific areas to find those arms, those infrastructure that need to be dismantled, sending in these units with Arabic speakers, with medical teams, and that’s how we were able [mitigate harm,]” he added.
“How does one deal with a terrorist infrastructure that is underneath the hospital?” he said. “We can strike it from the air, but of course that has its implications – and that’s why we chose not to do it.”
Israel is in a fight for its very existence, and unfortunately there will be casualties in war—and yes, some of them will be civilians. Their other choice is to sit back and let rockets fall on Tel Aviv unanswered and allow savage terror attacks to continue unpunished.
Israel made clear Sunday that they intend to make good on their vow to destroy the terrorist group.
