An Israeli military spokesman announced last night the “expansion of ground activity” in Gaza, and after a few minutes the strip was subjected to intense bombardment, the cutting of all communications – including the internet – and a land entry in undetermined number that are the most similar to the beginning of the land war, even if it has not been declared by the Israeli Government.
Hamas admitted, in a dramatic series of statements, that there is “violent fighting” on a midnight coinciding with three weeks of its terror attack.
A country with good antennas and historical ally of Israel, the kingdom of Jordan, expressed itself last night in a catastrophic way, assuming that the ground war has begun. The Jordanian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aiman ??Safadi, pointed out that “Israel has just started a ground operation in Gaza with a result that will be a humanitarian disaster in the coming years”.
The Government of Israel did not clarify yesterday if this “expansion” is equivalent to a full-fledged invasion or if it will be an operation of hours. In his collaboration with CNN, former NATO Supreme Commander Wesley Clark warned that “it’s easy to enter (the strip), but it’s harder to stay there.” No one dares, on the other hand, to risk the time required by the goal of eradicating – at whatever cost – Hamas, which has been ruling the strip alone and with an iron fist for 15 years.
At the same time, the White House claimed that it has not drawn any red lines on Israel, a way of giving the green light to the imminent ground war.
The expansion comes on the day that Qatar launched a hopeful message about the possibility of new hostage releases. Al-Jazeera television reported that negotiations were progressing “rapidly” on the basis of “a cease-fire” in exchange for additional releases. So far, Israel has been angered by the request for a cease-fire, contrary to its military preparations, already more interrupted than was predictable.
However, the same Israeli military spokesman mentioned the point: “Israel will continue to do everything possible for the return of the abductees.” More and more Israelis are wearing a yellow ribbon on their wrist: the color that claims that the kidnapped are – or should be – a priority.
“You, the media and their governments, are to blame, they only defend Israel”, the employee who was fixing the small chapel of the VII station of the Via Dolorosa in the old city of Jerusalem told us yesterday, by way of greeting , without a soul.
The war in Gaza is already close to a record in terms of information: 2,500 accredited foreign journalists, half a hundred Spanish. We all work in Israeli territory. Gaza? It is impossible to access it, only the media with a permanent presence, very few Western ones (including the France-Presse agency). And yet, despite such pettiness, it is impossible to certify anything, which reinforces the historical polarization of an endless conflict.
A spokesman for the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, denounced yesterday – with several photographs and intercepted recordings of alleged Hamas leaders – that the Islamist organization was using the main operating hospital in the Strip, Al-Shifa, as to tapadora, especially to enter the underground tunnel network. The same military source accused Hamas of locating one of its main command centers in the basement of the hospital. Time and time again, the Israeli Government tries to make its thesis that they try to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza credible, but that it is Hamas that exposes its own as human shields.
Within minutes, a Hamas spokesman claimed that it was a “falsehood” of someone “with the mentality of a ten-year-old child” and the prelude to “a new slaughter against our people, greater than that of the Al-Ahli hospital”, with reference to the explosion of October 17. Initially, Hamas and its allies accused Israel of the deaths of around five hundred people, which was proven to be false.
