360,000 Israelis are mobilized ahead of the historic gathering of forces
Magnus Falkehed
Updated 05.47 | Published 00.11
News
BE'ERI. From having housed a warm and vibrant love festival, the field a couple of kilometers from the Gaza border resembles something between a war zone and an outdoor military base.
Israel is now mobilizing everything the country has for a bloody war.
- We must do what is necessary to put an end to this. Retribution will be brutal, says reservist Eyal, 35.
Quick version
*Israel mobilizes 360,000 reservists for war against Hamas
*Bloody attack on festival grounds shocked the world: 260 murdered and many kidnapped
*Of the Gaza Strip's two million inhabitants, 42 percent are under the age of 14
Eyal is one of Israel's 360,000 reservists being mobilized in a historic mobilization. He has already fought in, among other things, the latest war in Lebanon.
We meet along the road to the festival area where Hamas launched one of its bloodiest attacks. Rows of cars remain, some marked with a yellow circle with a cross in it. This indicates that the vehicle – or what's left of it – has been checked and any bomb traps have been removed. A mattress lies next to a burnt-out car, a sleeping bag next to a car with bullet holes and by the road one of the festival participants' stuffed animals lies in the sand.
Niv and Eli, both 24 years old, are waiting to set off for Gaza with their tanks.
Niv and Eli, both 24 years old, are waiting to set off for Gaza with their tanks. Photo: Niclas Hammarström
A week ago, the festival area was attacked by Hamas supporters who came in parachutes as well as on motorcycles, armed with automatic carbines and hand grenades. The result, shocked the whole world. Around 260 participants were murdered and an unknown number kidnapped.
Shooting and shelling can still be heard in the area. Infiltrators from the Islamist terror-classified movement Hamas on the other side of the wall continue to keep the soldiers on their toes.
- We will not let them break us, says Eyal and nods his head towards the Gaza Strip, on the other side of the sandy hills. The day after our meeting, an infiltrator will be captured in the area.
Israel is mobilizing its troops ahead of an invasion of Gaza. Photo: Niclas Hammarström
Long lines of tanks
Several search operations for bodies are canceled due to the threat. In the daylight we see long lines of tanks in formation on fields that almost no one lower takes care of. Except possibly the farmer Muhammad who takes a break and rolls out his prayer mat towards Mecca in the dusty field.
In the night we hear what sounds like fire from tanks and cannons in and around the festival area firing into the northern part of the Gaza Strip with devastating regularity.
Dark columns of smoke rise into the sky during the day.
Muhammad has stopped his tractor in the fields and says his Friday prayer. A few hundred meters away, the Israeli military is preparing for a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip. Photo: Niclas Hammarström
Inside, in one of the world's most densely populated areas, the retaliation from Israel has already begun. Of the Gaza Strip's two million inhabitants, 42 percent are under the age of 14, according to the Center for Strategic Studies, CSIS.
- I really hope I won't kill civilians, says surgeon Nauti, 37. Vid meets him at a gas station east of the festival area. He says he is grateful for the aid the US says it has already started pouring into Israel.
At the same time, no one knows if more ammunition and more of the former will be enough, this time.
The enemy, Hamas, is not the enemy Israel thought it had on its radar. The movement's members have learned to defeat Israeli surveillance systems. They handle various types of weapons, such as drones (and possibly access data hacking), in conjunction with backhoes against fences and air landings in gliders of men with automatic weapons. Everything coordinated. If you add to that advanced disinformation about the real targets over several months, the picture of classic terrorists can become a bit one-tracked.
Nauti, 37, is a doctor by day but now about to join the army.
1 / 3Photo: Niclas Hammarström
"Hope Israel will support Gaza"
Even Nauti has already experienced war, in the old school. Perhaps that's why his first reflex was that he didn't want to put the uniform back on. Now he also has two small children at home. But the bestial abuses committed on the first day of the war made him change his mind.
What he saw after the advance of Hamas, he will never forget.
- I am a surgeon and have already been in war. I dare say I've seen more than most. But this? The children! The women! It was too much, he says.
Now he too is determined that Hamas must be crushed, once and for all.
But when asked what comes next, when the children of today's Hamas supporters have grown up, in parallel with his own children, Nauti hesitates for a moment.
- I have always voted for the party that is most optimistic about a peaceful solution. I hope that Israel will support Gaza after the war and help all those who want to live in peace, he says.
But first enough blood must flow, the surgeon continues and explains that he does not figure by surname.
He looks at the war with concern. Perhaps Israel, despite its military strength and concentration of power, has lost dexterity.
- We used to have control. We always knew what one or the other choice would cost in human lives, he says.
Inga kommentarer:
Skicka en kommentar