Israeli Air Force conducts flights over Gaza to prepare for ground invasion

The Israeli Air Force has been conducting flights over the Gaza Strip with senior ground force commanders to offer them an aerial perspective of the areas where the military can impose a ground incursion, reported the Times of Israel.

Several Israeli brigade and battalion commanders were given a first-hand look from combat helicopters at the anticipated entry and progression points for ground troops in the imminent land offensive.

The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) announced on Saturday that it was in the last stages of its preparations for a “coordinated attack from the air, sea and land.”

Israel is preparing a ground invasion, in an effort to “destroy Hamas”, it says, however many believe this is genocide and Israel aims to wipe out Palestinians from the area.

Authorities in Gaza said at least 2,750 people had so far been killed by the Israeli strikes, a quarter of them children, and nearly 10,000 wounded. Another 1,000 people are missing and believed to be under rubble.

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The army’s Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, said yesterday, while visiting soldiers in southern Israel: “Our responsibility now is to enter Gaza, to go to the places where Hamas is preparing, acting, planning, launching. Attack them everywhere, every commander, every operative, destroy infrastructure. In one word: win.”

He added: “We’re going to do something big, important, to change the situation for a long, long time. This is a great mission, a great privilege. Do it with excellence. The State of Israel, the residents of the south — they all place their trust in you.”

Moreover, the Israeli military’s spokesperson stated, yesterday: “We are acting in accordance with international law to cause a minimum amount of harm to uninvolved citizens. I stress this to the world. This is the difference between us and our enemies.”

However, the United Nations agency supporting Palestinian refugees issued a statement yesterday, asserting that Israel’s air strikes on Gaza had triggered an “unprecedented human catastrophe” in the Palestinian region.

“Not one drop of water, not one grain of wheat, not a litre of fuel has been allowed in the Gaza Strip for the last eight days,” Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, told journalists. “Raise the alarm that as of today, my UNRWA colleagues in Gaza are no longer able to provide humanitarian assistance as I speak.”

“In fact, Gaza is being strangled and it seems the war right now has lost its humanity,” he added.

Meanwhile, hundreds of tonnes of aid from several countries have been held up in Egypt for days pending a deal for its safe delivery to Gaza and the evacuation of some foreign passport holders through the Rafah crossing.

Egypt has said the bombardment had rendered the crossing inoperable.

The United States has told its citizens in Gaza to get close to the crossing so they can move out. The US government estimates the number of dual-citizen Palestinian-Americans in Gaza at 500 to 600 among the enclave’s population of 2.3 million, and Washington hopes to get many of its nationals out of harm’s way.