A spokesman for the IDL posted a video statement with details of the two-day battle with Hamas, with sad details of the brutal assault on Israeli citizens and the military.
Shalom from Tel Aviv, Jonathan here, and I’m here to give you a nightly update. Almost 48 hours into the fighting a little bit less and the picture and the situation in Israel is a dire one.
They’re still fighting going on in southern Israel. Our troops are still fighting and hunting down the last terrorists who are still inside Israeli territory. But is something that will take a few hours or maybe even more than that. But at the end of that process, all of the terrorists that came into Israel will be gone. By the way, we assessed that there were approximately a thousand terrorists who participated in yesterday’s invasion of Israel, and about a thousand bloodthirsty Palestinians who went from house to house and building to building in search of Israeli civilians. They massacred them.
Approximately 700 have been killed and that’s civilians and military included, and more than 2,100 have been wounded. Unfortunately, there’s a high number of critically wounded people who may not make it. So, unfortunately, the astronomical figure of 700 days will not remain that.
It is by far the worst day in Israeli history; never before have so many Israelis been killed by one single thing. Let alone enemy activity on one day and if you’re American and want to compare this to something in American history, then this could be a 9/11 and a Pearl Harbor wrapped into one.
We are a small country with about eight, nine million Jews living here. And out of that population we’ve had 700 killed in 2100 wounded, Unfortunately. And this is probably the most dominant factor that will shape the activities for the future.
There is a very large amount of Israeli civilians and soldiers held inside Gaza. And that number, I think, in the coming days will be revealed officially. But at this time, I can only say that we are talking about many many Israelis Israelis who were forcefully taken from Israel.
Women, children, infants, elderly, and even disabled people. And I’ve seen stories of a grandma holocaust survivor who was taken across the border from Israel to Gaza by Hamas militants with two toddlers behind her in a special vehicle; that is the extent of the brutality, the cynicism, and the monsters that we are facing.
We have around a hundred thousand reserve troops currently in southern Israel, preparing to execute the task that the Israeli government has designated to the IDF to do.
Our job is to make sure that by the end of this war, Hamas will no longer have any military capabilities.
And in addition to that, we are also to make sure that Hamas will not be able to govern the Gaza strip. Because you see the situation today is fundamentally different than what it was two days ago. And at the end of this war, we will change the situation for the better around our border in Gaza and it will be much better for Israelis, and it will be better for the Palestinians as well.
But that is yet to come. That is in the future and as of now, we are focusing on burying the dead, grieving with the families, rallying our troops, preparing ourselves for the military tasks to come, and focusing on what needs to be done with Hamas after there unprovoked or barbaric attack against Israel. I hope that you find this information useful.
We’re in for a long, difficult, and gruesome task at the end of which I’m sure that we will prevail despite how difficult these first days have been. And however horrible we started this war, well has proven time and again to all of our enemies whether, it was in the past on gangs of Arabs and then nation states and now non-state actors terrorist organizations to all of them. They have tried to annihilate us, and all of them have failed. We shall prevail, and we trust that the good people in the world will support us.
Thank you for watching. I wish you all the best and I hope that you will continue to support Israel. Thank you.