Israel carried out the largest attack on land in the conflict so far, according to Tel Aviv, since the Hamas attack against Israeli territory on October 7 that left 1,400 dead and more than 200 hostages. Israeli forces entered the Gaza Strip at dawn, by land in the north and by sea in the south.
With many tanks, bulldozers and other armed vehicles, they destroyed the barracks and armories of Hamas, and ended the lives of many militants. Some actions are part of “preparation” and a mere “rehearsal” for the invasion of the enclave, which is controlled by the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas).
The Army referred to a “raid” and avoided referring to this operation as a “raid.” “This is a raid at the brigade level: infantry with some D9s in the parameter,” said one of the Israeli Defense Forces’ spokesmen, Richard Hecht, referring to a type of armored excavator they use.
The situation is more tense pending the announced large-scale ground invasion into Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 attacks.
But in the meantime, Israel continues to bomb the Strip every day, with more than 7,000 Palestinians killed since the start of the war. There are destroyed neighborhoods, at least 200,000 houses have been reduced to rubble, representing 25% of the entire inhabited area of ​​Gaza.
The armed wing of Hamas claimed that about 50 Israeli captives also died in the Gaza Strip, victims of these Israeli bombardments.
The Israelis are arming themselves
It also happens that Israeli civilians are arming themselves and the shooting ranges are a coming and going of people who want to learn how to use them. The panic has caused up to 150,000 requests to bear arms since that day, compared to only 42 last year.
Gun shops work around the clock, even when opening on the Jewish holy day, Shabbat. “We were completely flooded. The phones didn’t stop ringing. It was great, people were protecting themselves,” explained a gun store worker.
At the shooting ranges they had to triple the shifts to cope with the avalanche of applicants, because to get the license in Israel it was necessary to implement these shooting practices.
However, the Ministry of National Security has issued licenses in a wide range of places and has even seen large distributions of handguns to civilians in high-risk areas.
Advocates of maintaining gun control in Israel believe that this overabundance of firearms increases the risk of accidental shootings, murders and suicides.
