Israel pounds Gaza with new wave of strikes
The Israel Defense Forces says it is carrying out a new wave of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
The IDF says it is hitting “many” targets belonging to the Hamas terror group.
Further details will be provided soon, the IDF adds.
Gantz: Israel in its toughest hour, our partnership will help secure victory
National Union head Benny Gantz tells Israelis who feel they no longer have security that “I understand the fear, I understand the pain,” but promises “Israel has the strongest army in the region.”
Gantz says his cooperation with the government is not political, “it’s a partnership for our fate.”
This is one of the toughest hours Israel has ever known, he says.
“Our partnership will lead to a clear victory, and will change the reality as we stand up to every challenge,” he says.
“There’s a time for peace and a time for war, now is the time for war,” he says.
Gallant: We will wipe out Hamas
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant calls the Hamas onslaught “the worst terror attack the world has ever seen.”
“What happened has not happened to the Jewish people since 1945,” he says.
He recounts various stories of officers and soldiers doing everything they could to try and stop the attackers.
Speaking with an angry intensity in a televised statement alongside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and National Unity leader Benny Gantz, he says the Hamas terror group will be “obliterated.”
“Hamas, Daesh of Gaza will be wiped from the face of the earth,” he says.
“There’s no situation in which you kill Israeli kids and we go about our business,” he adds.
Netanyahu: Every member of Hamas is a dead man
Announcing the formation of an emergency government with the addition of National Unity, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says “we put every other consideration to the side for the citizens of Israel.”
He says in a televised address that Israel is now on the attack.
“Every member of Hamas is a dead man,” he adds.
What Hamas carried out was worse than the Islamic State, he says, recounting evidence that they beheaded people, raped women, burned people alive.
He calls US support “critical” to Israel’s fight.
Knesset committee to meet on approving home front emergency, reserves call-up
The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will hold a special closed-door session on Thursday regarding the war with Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to appear before the committee.
The influential panel will discuss the government’s declaration of a “special situation,” which allows the military’s Home Front Command to restrict gatherings and close off areas, as well as a government request to officially approve a general call-up of military reservists, among other matters, the Knesset’s spokesperson says.
National Unity to officially join government with Thursday vote
The Knesset will convene a vote at 7 p.m. on Thursday to approve the addition of five National Unity MKs to the newly announced emergency government.
MKs Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Gideon Sa’ar, Chili Tropper and Yifat Shasha-Biton will join the government and the security cabinet.
Gantz will also sit on a small war cabinet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
The five will swear-in as ministers immediately after the vote.
On Kibbutz Be’eri, evidence of horror everywhere
There is evidence in Kibbutz Be’eri that children were slain in front of their parents, Maj. Doron Spielman says. Knives were found left in some of the children.
Bodies are still being taken out of the kibbutz, which Spielman says will be remembered as a symbol of Hamas’s massacre, like Auschwitz is the symbol of the Holocaust.
Some 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered by the terror group, including over 100 at Be’eri alone.
Spielman says body parts of children were found, and they still do not know who they belonged to until they are matched with the DNA of living relatives.
Zaka search and rescue teams continue to work on finding and clearing bodies.
“It will take weeks to understand what happened here,” says Spielman.
In one of the homes, 40 civilians were held by 20 terrorists. The building was stormed by special forces, six of whom were killed.
All around are homes barely standing. Walls are collapsed, rooms are burnt and the smell of dead bodies wafts in the air.
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