Israel has reportedly deployed extra artillery and armoured personnel carriers to the Gaza Strip periphery, suggesting that the military is preparing for its long-threatened ground offensive on Rafah, the only place of relative safety for at least 1.4 million displaced Palestinian civilians.
Israeli daily Ma’ariv also said on Wednesday that troops had been put on alert and “the governing principle of the operation” had been approved by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) general staff and Yoav Gallant, the defence minister. The IDF declined to comment on the reports.
The IDF confirmed on Tuesday it was buying 40,000 tents to prepare for the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians who have sought shelter in Rafah, the southernmost town in the Gaza Strip, which is only major urban area in the territory that Israeli ground forces have not yet entered.
Israel was just massacring people trying to return north two days ago. Trying to keep them all together in Rafah to kill as many civilians as possible? Or to ethnically cleanse them into Egypt with cooperation of the dog Sisi?
Somewhat contradictory of the massed artillery and APC plan in the first sentence is this fever dream further down the page:
…Amos Harel, a military and defence analyst and writer for Israeli daily Haaretz.
“Biden has been telling Bibi that he can’t invade Rafah, so it may be that we see a smaller incursion over a limited time period in which Israel hits the Hamas battalions hard and then withdraws”…
Where did they dig up this dinosaur? There are plenty of delusional fools in the Israeli war apparatus but this Napoleonic battalion crack he’s smoking is incredible. Israel’s SOF raiders have been getting absolutely rinsed by the locals since minute one of October 7th, and adding massed artillery or a reaction force in APC’s won’t turn that tide against hit and run guerrillas with short firing exposures and tunnel systems.
The use of “APC’s” without specifying the Namer is also a bad omen. If they try to roll around Rafah in M113s it’s gonna be a big sticky mess of laffy taffy
