“We have to go into the next phase of the war on the best terms, not on what anyone tells us.” Starting today, we are increasing the number of strikes and reducing the risk,” Admiral Daniel Hagari told reporters.
“We will increase the attacks, so I have called on the residents of Gaza City to continue moving south to be safe,” he added.
Israel has warned more than a million residents of the northern area around Gaza City to evacuate to the southern part of the Gaza Strip. Israel believes that Hamas leaders and infrastructure are concentrated in the north. However, hundreds of thousands of civilians are reported to remain in and around Gaza City.
Hagari announced the intensifying strikes hours after a convoy of trucks carrying the first international aid to reach the Gaza Strip since October 7 crossed the Egyptian border into the besieged Palestinian territory.
Meanwhile, in Israel, army commanders visited frontline units on Saturday.
The country has mobilized tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of tanks to the Gaza border in preparation for a widely expected ground invasion.
“We will enter Gaza,” Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said during a visit to an infantry brigade.
“The Gaza Strip is densely populated, the enemy is preparing a lot there – but we are also preparing for them,” he said.
“We will carry out an operational, professional mission to destroy Hamas activists, Hamas infrastructure. And we will not forget the photos, the images and the dead two weeks ago (October 7), Saturday,” he added.
On October 7, the Islamist group “Hamas” invaded Israel from the Gaza Strip, took more than 200 hostages and killed at least 1,400 people. people, mostly civilians.
Since then, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and claims that around 1,500 have been killed in the clashes. of the group’s fighters until his army regained control of the area under attack.
In response to the attack, the Jewish state launched a bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip that has leveled entire city blocks and killed nearly 4,385 Palestinians, mostly civilians, so far, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry.
Hamas is the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip; it has been involved in several wars with Israel since taking over the Gaza Strip in 2007. The group has been recognized as a terrorist by Israel, the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom and some other countries.
Hamas is supported by Iran, financing the acquisition of weapons, supplying them and providing military training. Hamas has a political office in Qatar, where some of its leaders are based.
2.3 million people live in the Gaza Strip. people, but Israel, with the help of Egypt, has imposed a blockade on the territory since 2007 – it restricted the import of goods to and from the territory by water, sea or air, as well as the ability of the Palestinians themselves to leave the territory, except for a few tens of thousands of workers.
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