00:00 The Israeli military is preparing to invade the Gaza Strip soon with tens of thousands
00:05 of soldiers ordered to capture Gaza City and destroy the enclave's current leadership,
00:10 according to three senior Israeli military officers who outlined unclassified details
00:16 about the plan.
00:18 The military has announced that its ultimate goal is to wipe out the top political and
00:23 military hierarchy of Hamas, the Palestinian group that controls Gaza and led last week's
00:29 terrorist attacks in Israel that killed 1,300 people.
00:33 The assault is expected to be Israel's biggest ground operation since it invaded Lebanon
00:39 in 2006.
00:40 It would also be the first in which Israel has attempted to capture land and at least
00:45 briefly hold onto it since its invasion of Gaza in 2008, according to the three senior
00:51 officers.
00:52 The operation risks locking Israel into months of bloody urban combat, both above the ground
00:58 and in a warren of tunnels ephrat offensive that Israel has long avoided because it involves
01:03 fighting in a narrow and tightly packed sliver of land populated by more than two million
01:08 people.
01:09 Israeli officials have warned that Hamas could kill Israeli hostages, use Palestinian non-combatants
01:15 as human shields, and have strewn the territory with booby traps.
01:19 It remains uncertain what Israel will do with Gaza City, Hamas's stronghold and the enclave's
01:25 largest urban centre, if it captures it, or what exactly Israeli officials mean when they
01:31 describe the destruction of Hamas as a leadership.
01:34 Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union, is a
01:39 large social movement as well as a militia that is deeply embedded within Gazan society.
01:45 It is also unclear whether Hezbollah, the larger, Iran-backed Lebanese militia that
01:50 is allied with Hamas and possesses a vast array of precision-guided missiles and ground
01:55 forces, might respond to an invasion of Gaza by opening up a second front with Israel along
02:01 the Lebanese border.
02:03 The military has not yet formally announced that it will invade Gaza, though it has confirmed
02:08 that reconnaissance teams briefly entered the strip on Friday and that Israeli troops
02:13 were increasing their readiness for a ground war.
02:16 Tens of thousands of Hamas gunmen are thought to have entrenched themselves inside hundreds
02:21 of miles of underground tunnels and bunkers beneath Gaza City and the surrounding parts
02:26 of northern Gaza.
02:28 Israeli military leaders expect that Hamas will attempt to impede their progress by blowing
02:33 up some of those tunnels as Israelis advance above them, and by exploding roadside bombs
02:39 and booby-trapping buildings.
02:41 Hamas also plans to ambush Israeli forces from behind by merging suddenly from hidden
02:47 tunnel openings dotted across northern Gaza, according to a Hamas officer who was not authorised
02:53 to speak to the news media.
02:55 To make it easier for its soldiers to operate, the Israeli military's rules of engagement
03:01 have been loosened to allow soldiers to make fewer checks before shooting at suspected
03:06 enemies, the three Israeli officers said, without giving further details.
03:11 Because of the widespread damage to Gaza caused by recent Israeli airstrikes, troops have
03:16 been given additional training in recent days to help them fight in ruined urban environments,
03:22 according to a fourth officer, Col.
03:25 Golan Vach.
03:26 The invasion was initially planned for the weekend, but was delayed by a few days at
03:31 least in part because of weather conditions that would have made it harder for Israeli
03:35 pilots and drone operators to provide ground forces with air cover, the officers said.
03:41 In addition to infantry, the Israeli strike force will include tanks, sappers and commandos,
03:48 the officers added.
03:49 The ground troops will be given cover by warplanes, helicopter gunships, aerial drones and artillery
03:56 fired from land and sea.
03:58 Their goal will be the rout of Hamas and the elimination of its leaders after the slaughter
04:03 they perpetrated, Rear Adm.
04:05 Daniel Hagari, the chief spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, said on Saturday.
04:11 This organization will not rule Gaza militarily and politically, Adm.
04:15 Hagari added.
04:16 A second military spokesman said that the army was particularly focused on killing Yassin
04:21 War, the top Hamas official whose offices, like those of the Hamas government, are in
04:27 Gaza City.
04:28 Israel holds Mr. Sinwar responsible for the atrocities against Israelis last Saturday.
04:34 Hamas terrorists and their allies massacred civilians in their homes shot and killed hundreds
04:40 of others in the street and at a dance music festival and kidnapped at least 150 other
04:45 people.
04:46 Israel's President, Isaac Herzog, said the attack was the deadliest single day for Jews
04:52 since the Holocaust.
04:53 "That man is in our sights," said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, another military spokesman,
05:00 referring to Mr. Sinwar.
05:02 "He's a dead man walking, and we will get to that man," Col. Hecht added.
05:07 Many Palestinians say they fear the invasion will mean a humanitarian crisis and potentially
05:12 exile.
05:13 The Israeli military has said it is seeking to prevent civilian deaths as far as possible.
05:19 It has warned Palestinians in Gaza City to head to the south of the territory, which
05:24 is not expected to be the focus of the opening phase of the invasion.
05:28 Hundreds of thousands have heeded that call, but others A encouraged by Hamas A have remained
05:33 in their homes.
05:34 The complexity of the invasion is heightened by the fact that Hamas is thought to be holding
05:39 many of the Israeli hostages with them in their underground bunkers and tunnels.
05:44 Israeli military analysts say they fear that Hamas will use the hostages as human shields,
05:50 creating a moral and operational dilemma for Israel.
05:53 "The only way to get to the hostages is through a ground operation," said Miri Eisen, a former
05:59 senior military officer and the director of the International Institute for Counterterrorism
06:05 at Reikman University in Israel.
06:07 "But if such an operation goes ahead," Ms. Eisen said, "the terrorists are going to take
06:13 those booby-trapped babies and Holocaust survivors and explode them to show us as being cruel."
06:19 Both Israel and Hamas are adept at psychological warfare and may be engaging in it with both
06:25 threats and leaks for advantage, especially as the hostage situation remains unresolved.
06:32 Israel's government has not yet decided whether to retake southern Gaza in addition to Gaza
06:36 City, according to one of the senior military officers.
06:40 But if southern Gaza stays outside of Israeli control, some Hamas leaders could still remain
06:46 at large. "Some military and political leaders want Israeli soldiers to undertake 18 months
06:52 of door-to-door arrest operations," said Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli diplomat and
06:58 security adviser to the Israeli government. "Others, I think, are far more sober and not
07:04 talking about demolishing Hamas-A but rather depriving Hamas of their ability to threaten
07:09 us," Mr. Novik added. "That might involve removing its rocket launchers, tunnels and
07:15 other military hardware, but essentially allowing it to continue as a social movement," Mr.
07:21 Novik added. The question of who would run Gaza after Hamas is also fraught, analysts
07:27 said. Israel could reassert direct control over
07:30 the territory, as it did from 1967 until 2005, but that would entail governing a large, hostile
07:38 population. One plan now discussed widely by diplomats, officials and analysts involves
07:44 allowing the Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank, to retake
07:49 control of Gaza, after it was forced out by Hamas in 2007. But that would risk making
07:56 the authority look like Israel's puppet, said Ibrahim Dalshah, a Palestinian analyst based
08:02 in Ramallah, West Bank. "They'd be coming in on an Israeli tank, in the aftermath of
08:08 Hamas being eradicated," Mr. Dalshah said. Reporting was contributed by Isabel Kirschner
08:14 in Kibbutz B'Ri, Israel Jonathan Rosen in Rehovot, Israel and Carol Sutherland in Moshven,
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