Israeli leaders grapple with dilemma of launching Gaza ground offensive

Israeli leaders are still grappling with the dilemma of whether to launch a ground offensive into Gaza or give more time for negotiations, in the hope of bringing about the release of some of the more than 200 hostages in Hamas captivity.

Prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu hinted on Tuesday that a decision is close.

“We are facing the next stage of the operation, it is on its way. You know it, you are part of it, you are part of the spearhead,” he told soldiers massed on the Gaza border.

Israel’s top general made it clear on Tuesday that the army is ready.

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“I want to be clear, we are ready to invade,” said Lieut Gen Herzi Halevi. “At this stage, there are tactical and strategic factors which are allowing us more time to improve and to exploit every minute to be more ready.”

[ Freed Israeli hostage speaks of ordeal in Gaza ]

Fighting continued on several fronts on the 18th day of the war.

The Israeli military said about a dozen Hamas divers trying to infiltrate from the sea were killed on Tuesday night when Israeli forces opened fire from the air, killing them in the sea or on the beach close to kibbutz Zikim. The incident marked the most serious attempt by Hamas to infiltrate into Israel since October 7th, when some 2,000 militants stormed across the border, killing more than 1,400 Israelis, most of them civilians, many in horrific circumstances.

Two rockets fired from Syria landed in the southern Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel blamed the pro-Iranian Hizbullah and fired at the area from where the rockets were launched.

Israel claimed that hundreds of Gaza militants were killed in air force strikes on Monday night and Tuesday, the heaviest to date. Militants launched rockets into central Israel, destroying a home in the West Bank settlement of Alfei Menashe.

Palestinian officials claimed that 700 people had been killed in Gaza in a 24-hour period.

A fourth aid convoy reached Gaza from Egypt on Tuesday but Juliette Touma, director of communications for the United Nations relief agency UNRWA, warned that the aid organisation will have to stop operations on Wednesday if there are no fuel deliveries.

“We have 600,000 people who have come seeking shelter. They need food, they need water, they need sanitation services. They need mattresses, they need protection,” she said.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza urged the international community to supply hospitals with fuel. It said 12 hospitals and 32 health centres are already out of service and more will close without fuel.

Israeli army spokesman rear admiral Daniel Hagari made it clear no fuel will enter Gaza. “Hamas stole fuel from UNRWA. They should return it.”

Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen cancelled a planned meeting at the United Nations with UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, after Mr Guterres told the security council that the October 7th Hamas attack “did not happen in a vacuum” and followed “56 years of suffocating occupation” for the Palestinian people by Israel.

Mr Guterres said: “The grievances of the Palestinian people cannot justify the appalling attacks by Hamas, and those appalling attacks cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

Israel’s UN ambassador Gilad Erdan called Mr Guterres’s speech “shocking”, saying he was “unfit” to head the international body, and calling on him to resign immediately.

Mr Cohen played the gathering a recording of what he said was a phone call of a Hamas terrorist bragging to his parents that he murdered 10 Jews on a kibbutz and his parents reacting with joy.

Visiting French president Emmanuel Macron called on Tuesday for the international coalition against the Islamic State to be expanded to also fight Hamas.

Mr Netanyahu told him the Hamas attack was like the Holocaust. “Hamas butchered, Hamas beheaded, Hamas burned babies alive, Hamas raped, Hamas kidnapped hostages,” he said.

With cross-border fire escalating daily, at least 20,000 residents of South Lebanon have fled north, fearing massive devastation if the clashes develop into an all-out war.