Israeli ground troops battle Hamas fighters, advance on Gaza City
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00:00 Let's talk about the Israeli ground campaign first of all.
00:03 The army, we know, is keeping its cards pretty close
00:06 to its chest.
00:07 But it does say its forces are making progress.
00:10 What's your sense as to what is happening on the ground?
00:13 Yeah, you're absolutely right.
00:14 It's very difficult to get any true sense of what's
00:17 happening on the ground because there's
00:18 so little reliable information coming out,
00:21 dribs and drabs at the most.
00:22 But as told by the Israeli Defence Forces Command,
00:28 the operation appears to be going rather better and rather
00:31 faster than might have been anticipated already.
00:35 They're saying they're effectively knocking
00:36 on the doors of Gaza City, at the gates of Gaza City,
00:40 to quote one Israeli Defence Forces commander.
00:45 They've taken casualties.
00:47 17 Israeli soldiers have been killed up to this point.
00:50 I suspect they would probably have anticipated heavier
00:53 casualties than that at this point.
00:56 And they say they're inflicting very heavy casualties
00:59 on the Hamas fighters that they've been encountering.
01:02 Typical guerrilla tactics, approaching the Israeli forces
01:06 using anti-tank weapons, grenades, booby traps.
01:11 The Israelis, for their part, have
01:12 been targeting not just with their ground forces,
01:15 but they've been using naval ships offshore.
01:19 They've been using tanks, artillery,
01:21 and their air force spotter drones.
01:23 The full panoply, in other words, of a modern army
01:27 and air force against Hamas.
01:29 And they are making progress.
01:30 The aim seems to be to cut off the northern part of Gaza
01:35 from the south, along the line of the Wadi Gaza,
01:39 the River Gaza, and to bottle Hamas up in Gaza City,
01:44 where most of its forces are concentrated.
01:46 What I presume the Israelis don't want
01:48 is for Hamas, when it comes under pressure,
01:50 to be able to slip away down to the south.
01:53 And when we talk about the ground war, Rob,
01:56 I think one of the big questions is, assuming--
02:01 and that's anyway a big question--
02:02 Israel is able to significantly diminish
02:05 the capabilities of Hamas, then what?
02:09 Do you think Israel has an end game at this point?
02:11 This is really the big question.
02:13 Because if they do have an end game,
02:16 there's been precious little talk about it
02:18 in the Israeli government or in any other circles in Israel
02:23 at the moment.
02:23 But certainly, one imagines that somebody
02:25 has to be giving a little bit of attention to this.
02:27 Because if, indeed, they do defeat Hamas militarily,
02:32 at least in the initial stages of a post-military operation,
02:37 the IDF, the Israeli Defense Forces,
02:39 will themselves have to take responsibility
02:43 for running Gaza and will be responsible for the security
02:48 of Gaza.
02:49 They won't want to stay there for very long.
02:51 At least, most of them won't.
02:52 There are parts of the current Israeli establishment,
02:55 the government, which would be very happy to reoccupy Gaza
02:59 on the far right, on the religious right
03:01 of Israeli politics.
03:02 There are certainly many who would be very happy
03:05 if that were to happen.
03:06 But the vast majority of Israeli society, I think,
03:10 is opposed to that.
03:11 And the international community is also opposed to that.
03:14 And that's something that, obviously, the Israeli
03:16 government has to think about very hard at the moment,
03:19 given the fact that Israel is even more dependent
03:22 on the United States than it has been for a very, very long time.
03:25 So the options appear to be, how do you, for instance,
03:32 re-engage the Palestinian Authority in Gaza?
03:35 Would the Palestinian Authority even
03:36 want to be re-engaged in Gaza?
03:39 Would they be happy about going into Gaza
03:41 on the backs of Israeli weapons?
03:44 These are all big questions that nobody
03:45 seems to be looking at.
03:46 Another possibility is bringing in outside Arab forces,
03:50 for instance, from the UAE, which
03:51 has had close ties with Hamas, but also from Morocco,
03:55 both countries with professional armies.
03:57 Could they provide a peacekeeping force?
04:00 It's a possibility.
04:01 All right, huge questions, indeed.
04:02 Thank you very much, indeed, for raising some of those.
04:04 Rob Parsons for us there.