A former spokesman for Israel’s navy gave one of many bluntest assessments of the state of affairs in Israel on Sunday, warning that it could take hours or longer to reclaim all of the cities in southern Israel almost 48 hours after Hamas militants launched a shock assault. He additionally claimed that the navy had despatched numerous troops to the southern border to organize for what gave the impression to be a floor invasion of the Gaza Strip.
“The image and the state of affairs in Israel is a dire one,” Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, a reservist within the Israel Protection Forces, stated on X, previously referred to as Twitter, on Sunday. The official Israeli Protection Forces account on X posted a hyperlink to his video assertion. Whereas not an official spokesman anymore, Mr. Conricus has been actively updating Israelis about Israel’s struggle in opposition to Hamas since Saturday. He stated that the navy had despatched at the least 100,000 reservists to southern Israel close to the border with Gaza.
“We’ve amassed round 100,000 reserve troops who’re presently in Southern Israel who’re getting ready to execute the duty that the Israeli authorities has designated the IDF to do,” he stated. “Our job is to be sure that on the finish of this struggle, Hamas will not have any navy capabilities to threaten Israeli civilians with.”
About 1,000 Hamas fighters crossed into southern Israel on Saturday shortly after the militant group launched a sequence of shock rocket assaults on Israeli cities. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared a state of struggle on Saturday as militants captured dozens of cities in southern Israel and attacked a music pageant. They took at the least 150 hostages, in keeping with the Israeli authorities.
Mr. Netanyahu has instructed Israelis to organize for an extended struggle that may shift to “offensive” operations quickly, a reference some have taken to imply that the navy will ship floor troops into Gaza.
“Sadly, and that is the in all probability essentially the most dominant issue that may form the actions for the long run, there’s a very great amount of Israeli civilians and troopers held inside Gaza.”
Mr. Conricus stepped into the worldwide highlight in 2021 when as one of many navy’s prime spokesmen he introduced the start of an Israeli floor invasion of Gaza that had not truly occurred. He then apologized, saying that he had misunderstood the state of affairs on the bottom.
When a number of information organizations, together with The New York Instances, questioned Mr. Conricus then about why he had misled the information media, he known as it an sincere mistake. However he acknowledged that the navy had sought to deceive fighters in Gaza by a sequence of ways that made it appear as if an invasion have been certainly occurring. He retired from energetic service quickly afterward, although he has stayed concerned within the navy’s data operation.
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