The Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Operation Iron Swords in the Gaza Strip will be “unsurpassed in its brutality” and “unlike anything” Israel has previously conducted. About it writes Reuters cited eight informed sources among officials in Israel and other countries in both the Middle East and the West.
Three regional officials familiar with discussions between U.S. and Middle Eastern leaders said Israel’s goal is to destroy Gaza’s infrastructure, “even at the cost of great casualties” among civilians. The IDF wants to push Hamas militants to the border with Egypt and blow up their network of underground tunnels, the source explained.
A source in Washington notes that a number of US President Joe Biden’s aides are concerned that Israel does not have a clear strategy in the region after the end of the conflict. Unnamed Arab officials expressed similar concerns, writes Reuters. According to one of the interlocutors, Israel’s plan is to “drop thousands of bombs, destroy everything and enter” the Gaza Strip. But the Israeli authorities have no idea what to do next, the source claims.
On October 7, the Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel. In response, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched Operation Iron Swords. The Israeli government announced that the country had entered a state of war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised that the country’s response to the Hamas attack will change the Middle East. According to the latest data, over 4,500 people have died as a result of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, most of them Palestinians.
17 October was inflicted attack on Al-Ahly hospital in the Gaza Strip. The parties to the conflict blamed each other for what happened. According to the IDF, the incident was connected with an unsuccessful rocket launch towards Israel by Islamic Jihad (an organization recognized as terrorist and banned in Russia), also based in Gaza. The attack killed 471 people, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin named what happened was a humanitarian catastrophe. To the State Duma contributed draft appeal to the UN in connection with the aggravation of the situation in the Middle East. The MPs called for measures to be taken to “immediately stop the bloodshed and escalation of violence”, as well as to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe in the region.
