Israel Fighting on Four Fronts as Gaza Ground Force Advances Methodically

JERUSALEM, Israel – Israel entered the fourth day of its ground invasion into the Gaza Strip Monday, as Israeli leaders remain committed to ending the threat from Hamas after the October 7th massacre.

The Jewish State finds itself fighting on four fronts. In Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) released footage of its methodical ground incursion. They also continued the air bombardment of Hamas infrastructure.

On the northern border, the I.D.F. continues to attack Hezbollah installations. For days, Hezbollah and the Israeli military have traded rockets, artillery firings and anti-tank missiles.

In Syria, Israeli warplanes attacked launchers that shot missiles toward Israel.  

And in the West Bank (biblical Judea and Samaria), Israel struck a terrorist squad inside the city of Jenin. 

In a televised news conference Saturday night, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israelis that Israel has opened a “new phase” in the conflict.

“The war inside the (Gaza) Strip will be long and difficult, and we are ready for it,” Netanyahu said. “This is our second war for independence. We will fight for our native land, we will fight and won’t back down. We will fight on the ground, in the sea and air. We will eliminate the enemy on the ground and under the ground. We will fight and we will win. It will be the victory of good over bad, of light over darkness, of life over death.”

Netanyahu also said about 90 percent of Hamas’s military budget comes from Iran, and he insisted that without Iran, there would be no Hamas or Hezbollah. 

The prime minister met on the weekend with the relatives of the more than 230 hostages taken by Hamas. Many of the families are worried the ground invasion will endanger the hostages. They support a prisoner swap to free their loved ones.

During the meeting, Netanyahu pledged to work as hard as he could to rescue the captives, saying the government would “exercise and exhaust every possibility” to bring them home.

The official number of hostages is now 239. 

“It’s an unbelievable number, 239 kidnapped,” said I.D.F. spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari. “Among the kidnapped are (Israeli) citizens, foreign workers – not a small number – whose identities and reaching their families is complex for us, and it takes time to build this picture, hence the number that I mentioned: 239.”

The fallout from the war is spreading to the nations.

In the Dagestan Republic of Russia, a pro-Hamas mob stormed the airport, hunting Jews returning from the war in Israel. The mob rampaged through the airport and surrounded the plane.

Israel’s ambassador to Russia is looking for safe passage for the Jews who were aboard, and the chief rabbi says all 400 families in Dagestan need to leave the country.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry released a statement, reading, in part, “The State of Israel takes seriously attempts to harm Israeli citizens and Jews everywhere. Israel expects the Russian law enforcement authorities to protect the safety of all Israeli citizens and Jews wherever they may be, and to act resolutely against the rioters and against the wild incitement directed against Jews and Israelis.”

Russia’s ambassador to Israel, Anatoly Viktorov, was summoned Monday morning to a protest call at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem following the visit of a Hamas delegation to Moscow.

And in Turkey, President Recep Erdogan called Hamas a “liberation group” during a giant rally in Istanbul Saturday. He also said he was prepared to label Israel a “war criminal” for its actions inside Gaza. Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said Jerusalem would reassess its diplomatic relations with Turkey as a result.

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