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Israel’s troops have been given more freedom to shoot at potential enemies in Gaza, according to a report, and could be ordered to spend 18 months in the enclave going door-to-door to root out Hamas.

A Hamas officer told The New York Times they intended to ambush the Israeli troops from behind once they entered Gaza, jumping out of hidden tunnels.

Senior Israeli officials told paper that the ground invasion was due to have begun already, but has been delayed due to bad weather preventing aerial cover.

The delay has given Palestinians living in the densely-populated enclave more time to flee. But they have nowhere to go: on Saturday, photos emerged showing Egyptian forces blockading the border crossing into Egypt with concrete slabs.

Gazans who journeyed to the Rafah crossing, told that they would be allowed to escape Gaza and cross into Egypt, were left frustrated on Saturday. One woman told CNN she had been instructed to wait by the gates, as they could open at any time.

Israeli armored personnel carriers are seen on the move near the Gaza border on Saturday

Palestinians are pictured on Saturday waiting at the border with Egypt, trying to get out of the enclave

Riding a donkey drawn cart as family along with hundreds of other Palestinian carrying their belongings flee following the Israeli army’s warning to leave their homes and move south

U.S. diplomats were frantically trying to convince Egypt to let U.S. citizens out of the enclave, and rumors abounded that foreign passport-holders would be allowed out.

But Egypt remains wary about having a permanent population of displaced people on their territory, and are worried about the destabilizing effects on their own country, which is in severe economic crisis.

On Thursday, Egypt’s president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, said Gazans must ‘stay steadfast and remain on their land.’

The king of Jordan, King Abdullah II, warned Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, on Friday in a meeting in Amman that there should be no attempt to forcibly remove Palestinians.

His wife, Queen Rania, was born in Kuwait to Palestinian refugee parents, and was raised in the West Bank.

Since Hamas – which controls Gaza – launched its terror attack on October 7, killing 1,300 Israelis, about 2,215 people have been killed in Gaza and more than 8,714 have been injured, according to Palestinian officials.

More Palestinians have been killed so far in 2023 than in 2014, when more than 2,000 were killed in a 50-day war.

Martin Griffiths, the United Nations humanitarian chief, said that he fears ‘that the worst is yet to come,’ and warned that the humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘is fast becoming untenable.’

The statement added that ‘the past week has been a test for humanity, and humanity is failing.’

Cars made a desperate exodus south ahead of an anticipated Israeli invasion

Rescuers bring a Palestinian boy to hospital in Gaza today following an Israeli air strike 

Palestinians, who fled their houses amid Israeli strikes, shelter at a United Nations-run school in Gaza on Saturday 

Palestinians wait at the Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt

A Palestinian family gather their possessions on Saturday and prepare to flee the upcoming ground offensive

The World Health Organization called Israel’s evacuation orders to hospitals in northern Gaza ‘a death sentence for the sick and injured.’

Israel, meanwhile, confirmed on Saturday that 258 of its soldiers had been killed.

‘The system for processing fallen soldiers is operating day and night,’ said Eyal Krim, the chief military rabbi.

He added that the process would be lengthy, as ‘a considerable number of the fallen soldiers are not easily identifiable, and their identification requires the use of advanced technology.’

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, on Saturday traveled to the Gaza border to meet some of the 360,000 troops now positioned there, ahead of the imminent invasion.

The Gaza incursion is expected to be Israel’s biggest ground operation since it invaded Lebanon in 2006.

Troops are being sent in to try and rescue an estimated 150 hostages being held by Hamas.

‘The only way to get to the hostages is through a ground operation,’ said Miri Eisin, a former senior military officer and the director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Reichman University in Israel.

But, she told The New York Times, the risk was immense.

‘The terrorists are going to take those booby-trapped babies and Holocaust survivors and explode them to show us as being cruel,’ she warned.

Israeli military sources told The New York Times that the ground troops would aim to destroy the top political and military hierarchy of Hamas.

Top of the kill list was Yahya Sinwar, 60, the current head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Yahya Sinwar is pictured in April 2022 speaking at a meeting in Gaza City. He has been described as the mastermind of the October 7 terror attack

Sinwar is seen in 2011 being hugged and kissed by Palestinians on release from an Israeli prison

Sinwar was exchanged with hundreds of other Palestinians for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was captured in June 2006 and held for five years

He has been arrested by Israel multiple times and spent 24 years in Israeli prisons: he was freed in 2011, as part of a prisoner swap in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Sinwar is being held responsible for the murder of 1,300 Israelis in the October 7 attack . The U.S. death toll rose to 29 on Saturday, with 15 missing, believed to be held hostage inside Gaza.

‘Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil,’ said Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, a spokesman for the IDF.

‘He is the mastermind behind this, like bin Laden was.

‘He built his career on murdering Palestinians when he understood they were collaborators. That’s how he became known as the butcher of Khan Younis [in southern Gaza].’

The ground troops will include tanks, sappers and commandos, with cover provided by war planes, helicopter gunships, aerial drones and artillery fired from land and sea, The New York Times reported.

They have been given additional training in how to operate in the heavily-bombed areas of Gaza, and have been planning for the expected Hamas ambush and booby traps.

Three Israeli sources told the paper that rules of engagement have been loosened to allow IDF forces to make snap decisions about potential enemies.

Nimrod Novik, a former senior Israeli diplomat and security adviser to the Israeli government, told the paper that some within Israel’s military establishment want troops to go door-to-door for 18 months, flushing out and killing top Hamas leaders.

‘Others, I think, are far more sober and not talking about demolishing Hamas, but rather depriving Hamas of their ability to threaten us,’ said Novik.

Israel has made little secret of its intentions, and is ordering civilians to leave northern Gaza.

Israel’s military says it is preparing for the ‘next stages of the war’ against Hamas, which could include ‘strikes from the air, sea and land’ with ‘significant ground operations.’

The effort involves hundreds of thousands of drafted reservists and will encompass ‘a wide range of operational offensive plans,’ the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement Saturday.

In addition to the ‘combined and coordinated strikes,’ the Israeli Ground Forces and the military’s logistics leadership are preparing IDF troops for an ‘expanded arena of combat,’ the statement said.

Netanyahu and President Joe Biden spoke on Saturday night for the fifth time since the fighting began last weekend, the Israeli prime minister’s office said.

The two discussed the general situation with a focus on matters in southern Israel, Netanyahu’s office said.

He also thanked Biden for the ‘security and intelligence’ aid provided to Israel as well as for the speedy visits by the Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

On Saturday, two U.S. sources told CNN that a second carrier strike group is moving to the region, after the first – led by the USS Gerald R. Ford – arrived off the coast of Israel earlier this week.

The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower strike group will join the Ford, having changed its plans to move toward the US European Command and deployed instead to the Middle East, leaving its Norfolk, Virginia, base on Friday.

The U.S. warships are not intended to join the fighting in Gaza or take part in Israel’s operations, Pentagon officials stress.

But the presence of two of the Navy’s most powerful ships is designed to send a message of deterrence to Iran and Iranian proxies in the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is the world’s largest aircraft carrier. It is now off the coast of Israel

‘Merkava’ battle tanks muster today at a gathering site at an undisclosed location along the border with Gaza

Addressing a Human Rights Campaign dinner Saturday in Washington, Biden linked the humanitarian crisis in Gaza to different versions of hate that he said must be stopped.

‘A week ago we saw hate manifest another way in the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust,’ Biden said, citing the 1,300 lives lost in Israel as well as ‘children, grandparents alike kidnapped, held hostage by Hamas.’

‘The humanitarian crisis in Gaza – innocent Palestinian families and the vast majority that have nothing to do with Hamas – they’re being used as human shields,’ he said.

‘We have to reject hate in every form.’

Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk

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