Posted on 01/04/2009 2:20:01 PM PST by ksm1
The IDF is prepared to deepen and escalate its ground operations in the Gaza Strip, defense officials warned on Sunday, as the IDF split the Palestinian territory in half and began surrounding Gaza City. Hamas, the officials said, was encountering difficulties in commanding and delivering orders to its forces.
St.- Sgt. Dvir Emanuelof, 22, from Givat Ze'ev and of the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion, was killed on Sunday from wounds he sustained in a mortar shell attack during clashes with Hamas terrorists near Jabalya.
Another soldier was critically wounded in the attack. Earlier in the morning, 30 soldiers from Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade were injured in clashes, and on Sunday night four soldiers were shot and wounded by Palestinian sniper fire.
By Sunday afternoon, the IDF had divided the Gaza Strip into two segments, in a move aimed at cutting off the flow of arms, supplies and fighters to the northern part of the Strip, as Palestinians claimed IDF tanks had taken up positions near the former settlement Netzarim and troops began surrounding Gaza City. Some 40 rockets landed in Israel on Sunday, scoring direct hits in Sderot and Ashkelon. According to Palestinian media reports, IDF troops had taken up positions throughout the north and on the outskirts of Beit Lahiya, Sajiya, Jabalya and al Atatra. The Paratrooper's, Golani and Givati Brigades were all operating inside Gaza. In the south, near the Dahaniyeh Airport, Palestinians also reported on clashes with IDF troops.
Military sources said that since Operation Cast Lead was launched last week over 1,000 targets had been bombed by the Air Force. On Sunday, the Palestinian death toll also climbed past 500 as IDF troops killed close to 40 Hamas gunmen during the ground operation in northern Gaza.
Defense officials said that the IDF operation was having an effect on Hamas's command-and-control capabilities and that the group was not able to mobilize large forces to fight against the IDF. Officials said that it was likely that a number of senior Hamas operatives and terror chiefs were hiding and conducting their operations from within Shifa Hosptial in Gaza City.
"Hamas operatives are in the hospital and have disguised themselves as nurses and doctors," one official explained. Military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin told the Cabinet that Hamas was using mosques, public institutions and private houses as ammunition stores.
Defense officials said that Hamas was trying to kidnap soldiers operating inside the Gaza Strip and that commanders had been ordered to take extra precautions to ensure their soldiers' safety.
As the ground operation picked up speed, the IDF kept up its pressure on Hamas leaders and began preparing to escalate and deepen its operations in Gaza by using large forces still amassed along the border.
Senior Hamas terrorist Hussam Hamdan, who was in charge of Grad-model Katyusha rocket cells in northern Gaza - behind the attacks on Beersheba and and Ofakim - was killed in an IAF strike in Khan Younis. Another senior Hamas terrorist, Muhammad Hilo, was killed in the same strike. Hilo, the IDF said, was in charge of the Hamas special forces in Khan Younis.
Mohamad Shalpoch, a member of Hamas's commando forces, was also targeted in an IDF strike near Jabalya on Sunday. It was unclear whether Shalpoch was killed in the strike.
Gaza health officials said around 20 civilians had also died in air strikes and shelling, including a 12-year-old girl, five members of the same family, and another eight civilians killed by a tank shell in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. The deaths brought the total death toll in the Gaza Strip since last Saturday to more than 500.
Residents of the small northern Gaza community of al-Attatra said soldiers moved from house to house by blowing holes through walls. Most of the houses were unoccupied, their residents having already fled.
"You entered like rats," Hamas spokesman Ismail Radwan told Israeli soldiers in a statement on Hamas' Al Aqsa TV. "Gaza will be a graveyard for you, God willing," he said.
The Hamas Interior Ministry said it was still in control of Gaza and had captured residents collaborating with Israel, as well as traders exploiting the situation to inflate their prices .
Sounds good to me.
HA! Now THAT is a technique for avoiding IEDs...!
Just don’t stop. Screw “world opinion,” because the “world” didn’t care when 6,400 HAMAS rockets and mortar rained down on your people. Find the HAMAS types and kill them.
That's exactly how the Marines took Fallujah in 2004 -- blowing holes through walls from one house to the next and avoiding prepared ambushes in the streets. It's a trick we learned from the IDF, and it worked very well.
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