Posted on 10/23/23
| News Source: JPost
“There is not a place in Israel that is safe now. If Hamas is not taken care of, there will literally be no place to go in the country,” according to Israel Defense Forces spokesman Maj. Doron Spielman.
Spielman spoke to The Jerusalem Post from Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, where over 100 of the community’s approximately 1,000 residents were slaughtered on October 7. Israeli strikes targeting Hamas interrupted the conversation frequently with loud booms.
Israel has been conducting airstrikes against Hamas for the past two weeks. The IDF and the Prime Minister’s Office have discussed the possibility of an imminent ground offensive to cripple Hamas’s capacity to function as a government or as a terrorist organization.
The last time Israel entered Gaza was in 2014 in Operation Protective Edge, 67 soldiers were killed. Following the recent attacks that claimed more than 1,400 lives, Spielman acknowledged the reluctance to consider further casualties in a war against Hamas. Nevertheless, he believes that the people of Israel will support such actions.
“This is not Vietnam, 4,000 miles away. The enemy is two miles away,” Spielman said. “The sons or daughters who enter Gaza will be fighting for their homes, literally, behind them. The citizens will stand behind us until the job is done.”