[IsraelTimes] Gideon’s Chariots offensive involves seizing control of ‘strategic areas,’ officials say; troops said advancing on Deir al-Balah, where ground forces have not operated since Oct. 7
The Israel Defense Forces announced late Friday that it has launched the first stages of a major offensive in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
Strip, dubbed "Gideon’s Chariots," that will seek to "seize strategic areas" of the Hamas
 ..not a terrorist organization, even though it kidnaps people, holds hostages, and tries to negotiate by executing them,...
-run Strip, where authorities reported dozens killed in heavy Israeli Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM! ...
s overnight and on Saturday morning.
In a statement, the military said it had "launched extensive attacks and mobilized forces" over the past days, "to achieve all the goals of the war in Gaza, including the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas."
"IDF troops in the Southern Command will continue to operate to protect Israeli citizens and realize the goals of the war," the military added.
Paleostinian media reported on Saturday that IDF ground troops had advanced overnight toward central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah. According to the reports, heavy artillery fire and airstrikes were carried out in the eastern Deir al-Balah area as the forces advanced.
Deir al-Balah is one of the few areas of the Strip where Israel has not sent ground troops since the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. Ground forces have previously operated on the outskirts of the town, but not deep inside it.
Social media users posted pictures of what they said were leaflets the IDF had scattered in the area of the town, instructing residents to flee. It was not immediately clear if the leaflets were genuine.
The reported leaflet featured the IDF logo on one corner and a Star of David captioned "righteous conquest," in Arabic, on the other corner. Over a background that showed a sea parted over destroyed buildings, the leaflet quoted a Koranic verse about the "Parting of the Sea," and below it a message: "Residents of Gaza, the Israeli army approaches."
According to Israeli officials, the operation would see the IDF "conquer" Gaza and retain the territory, attack Hamas, prevent the terror group from taking control of humanitarian aid supplies, and move Paleostinians from Gaza’s north to its south.
An Israeli defense official said earlier this month that the operation would not be launched before the end of Friday of US President Donald Trump
...The man who was so stupid he beat fourteen professional politicians, a former tech CEO, and a brain surgeon for the Republican nomination in 2016, then beat The Smartest Woman in the World in the general election. Then he beat Kamala while dodging bullets...
’s four-day Middle East tour.
The tour coincided with the resumption of Gaza truce-hostage talks in Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
following the US-brokered release of Israeli-American captive soldier Edan Alexander. The talks have made little progress amid Israel’s refusal to end the war until Hamas is defeated.
HAMAS AUTHORITIES SAY DOZENS KILLED IN AIRSTRIKES
Airstrikes were reported Saturday in the areas of Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, and Jabalia, in the Strip’s north. Marwan Al-Sultan, director of northern Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, said Saturday morning that the medical center had since midnight received “58 martyrs, while a large number of victims remain under the rubble.”
Sultan said the situation at the hospital was “tragic and catastrophic after its surroundings were targeted again this morning, causing the collapse of ceilings and cracks in the walls.”
“The operating rooms and intensive care units are completely full, and we are unable to receive any more critical cases,” he said.
He added there was “a severe shortage of blood units, medicines, medical and therapeutic supplies, and surgical procedures.”
Doctors had been forced to source blood for transfusions from other patients and even from themselves “due to the impossibility of donations from citizens due to malnutrition,” said Sultan.
Meanwhile, Hamas’s civil defense agency said 10 bodies had been brought to Gaza hospitals following strikes Saturday morning.
Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that three people were killed and four wounded in drone strikes east of Khan Younis, while three others were killed and several wounded in the bombing of a house in Jabalia.
An attack on an apartment northwest of Khan Younis killed three people, while one person was killed and five wounded, “including a girl, a young woman and a pregnant woman,” in a strike on a tent west of the city, he added.
More than 300 Gazans have been killed in Israeli strikes since Thursday, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which says more than 53,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the war so far.
The tolls cannot be verified and do not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas, including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.
Israel says it has killed some 20,000 combatants in battle as of January, and another 1,600 terrorists inside the country during the October 7 onslaught, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists killed some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages.
UN CHIEF ‘ALARMED’ BY EXPANDED GAZA OFFENSIVE
Speaking at an Arab League
...an organization of Arabic-speaking states with 22 member countries and four observers. The League tries to achieve Arab consensus on issues, which usually leaves them doing nothing but a bit of grimacing and mustache cursing...
summit in Baghdad on Saturday, United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
chief António Guterres
...Portuguese politician and diplomat, ninth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Previously, he was the UN High Commissioner for Refugees between 2005 and 2015. He was the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002 and was the Secretary-General of the Socialist Party from 1992 to 2002. He served as President of the Socialist International from 1999 to 2005. In both a 2012 and 2014 poll, the Portuguese public ranked him as the best Prime Minister of the previous 30 years...
expressed astonishment at Israel’s expanded operation in the besieged Strip.
"We need a permanent ceasefire, now," said Guterres. "I am alarmed by reported plans by Israel to expand ground operations and more."
His comment followed a statement by UN aid chief Tom Fletcher rejecting a US-backed proposal to deliver aid to Gaza without it going to Hamas.
“To those proposing an alternative modality for aid distribution, let’s not waste time. We already have a plan,” he said, adding that the UN has a proven plan and 160,000 pallets of relief ready to enter the Palestinian enclave now.
Fletcher enraged Israel’s mission to the UN this week after he told the body’s security council to act “to prevent a genocide” in Gaza. Israel has angrily rejected the accusation that it is perpetrating a genocide.
Israel halted the flow of aid to Gaza on March 2, hours after the Gaza ceasefire-hostage deal’s first phase expired amid Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate the second phase, which would have required an end to the war. On March 18, Israel resumed hostilities in Gaza with a surprise series of deadly airstrikes.
Following the 42-day first phase and the release of Edan Alexander on Monday, terror groups in Gaza still hold 58 hostages, at least 35 of whom have been confirmed dead, including a soldier killed fighting in the 2014 Gaza war.
IDF says it demolished 2 km ‘strategic’ Hamas tunnel in Gaza
[IsraelTimes] The IDF says it demolished a 2-kilometer-long Hamas tunnel during recent operations in the northern Gaza Strip.
The military describes the tunnel as “strategic.” It was located and destroyed by troops of the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade and Yahalom combat engineering unit.
Report: Body of Hamas leader Muhammad Sinwar found in Gaza tunnel struck by IDF
[IsraelTimes] The Saudi channel Al-Hadath reports that the body of Muhammad Sinwar, the de facto commander of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza, was found in a tunnel in Khan Younis where the terror leader was targeted by the Israel Defense Forces last week.
According to the report, the bodies of 10 of Sinwar’s aides were found with him.
It is also reported that there is evidence that the commander of the Rafah Brigade in Hamas’s military wing, Mohammad Shabana, was also killed in the strike.
Israel has not confirmed the deaths of either Sinwar or Shabana.
The strikes on Tuesday targeted an underground command compound below the European Hospital where Sinwar was believed to be sheltering. The IDF later bombed the area several more times, in an apparent attempt to prevent anyone from approaching the tunnel.
Sinwar, a senior Hamas military commander, is the younger brother of the former Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by the IDF in southern Gaza last October.
Following the killing of Hamas’s top military commander, Muhammad Deif, last July, Muhammad Sinwar took charge of the terror group’s military wing. Later, after Sinwar’s older brother was killed by IDF troops, he became the de facto leader of the terror group in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have described Muhammad Sinwar as obstinate with regard to negotiations with Hamas for the release of hostages, and an obstacle to reaching a ceasefire deal.
The younger Sinwar is also wanted for terrorist actions against Israel and has been active in Hamas for decades.
He was jailed by Israel in the 1990s for nine months and spent an additional three years in a Palestinian Authority prison in Ramallah, from which he escaped in 2000. In 2006, Sinwar was part of a Hamas cell that abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. He also previously commanded Hamas’s Khan Younis Brigade.
Most of Hamas’s leadership has been eliminated by Israel during the ongoing war. |
...The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...
..a contraction of the Arabic words for "frothing at the mouth",...
...46th president of the U.S. Joe's wife and daughter weren't killed by a drunk driver. He didn't graduate with three or even two degrees, wasn't in the top half of his law class, and his daddy didn't come home from a hard day's work in the mines and play football with the guys. The NAACP hasn't endorsed him every time he's run....