The Israeli military has expressed doubt over how effective the planned assault to occupy Gaza City will be in terms of forcing Hamas into submission, according to Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation (KAN).
KAN reported on 4 September that an army representative addressed a closed-door panel of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee a day earlier.
“Why would the occupation of Gaza City cause Hamas to budge at all? I did not say it would move Hamas; it is not certain at all. The city has symbolic significance,” he told the committee, according to KAN.
The panel was also informed by the military representative that around 800,000 Palestinians reside in Gaza City.
Israel has declared Gaza City a “dangerous combat zone” and has already initiated plans to forcibly displace the nearly one million residents.
Previous reports have revealed heavy tensions between the government and Israeli army chief Eyal Zamir, who went to great lengths pressing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the danger the occupation plan poses to the captives held by the resistance in Gaza.
Zamir also told Netanyahu that the operation will put further unnecessary strain on Israeli troops.
The army chief plans to tell the government that “there will be no choice but to impose military rule on all of Gaza from November,” Channel 12 reported on 3 September. Zamir has previously called on the government to accept an exchange and ceasefire deal.
On Wednesday, Hamas said it was willing “to enter into a comprehensive deal in which all enemy prisoners held by the resistance will be freed in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian prisoners held by the occupation.”
“This agreement will end the war on the Gaza Strip, result in the withdrawal of all occupation forces from the entire Gaza Strip, open the border crossings to allow the entry of all the Gaza Strip’s necessities, and start the process of rebuilding,” it added. “The Hamas movement is still awaiting the response of the Zionist enemy to the proposal.”
Hamas had said in a statement on 18 August that it accepted the latest Egyptian proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal in the Gaza Strip.
However, Israel rejected the deal and insisted on going ahead with the occupation of Gaza City.
“This is more spin by Hamas, containing nothing new,” Netanyahu’s office said in reference to Hamas’s statement.
The premier’s office added that the war can end immediately if five conditions are met – the release of all captives, the disarmament of Hamas, the demilitarization of Gaza, Israeli security control in Gaza, and “the establishment of an alternative civilian administration that does not indoctrinate for terror, does not dispatch terror, and does not threaten Israel.”
A leaked Israeli army document obtained by Hebrew media has concluded that Operation Gideon’s Chariots, launched by the military in Gaza earlier this year, failed to achieve its goals.
Hellbound and Down 