Israeli troops wait in fields near Gaza in sign of imminent invasion
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Israeli soldiers load tank shells as their unit masses in Be'eri, near the border with the Gaza Strip.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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BE’ERI, Israel - All signs indicate an imminent Israeli ground invasion of Gaza, as Israeli troops mass around the border.
On Saturday, eight days after Hamas launched its surprise assault on nearby Israeli communities, killing at least 1,300 people, and after a week of punishing Israeli air strikes on the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, the pastoral farmland around the border has been transformed. Hulking among the cotton meadows, green orchards and dusty fields are rows of tanks and armoured personnel carriers pointing in the direction of the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Since the Hamas incursion – the bloodiest single day in Israel’s 75-year history – the Israeli military says it has mobilised 360,000 reservists. Some of them have been waiting in these makeshift field camps for a week.
For what exactly, they don’t know or won’t say. On Saturday, the Israeli military announced in a statement that troops were gearing up for “a significant ground operation”, without setting a timetable.
After the atrocities and trauma inflicted on their country, the soldiers say, the mission is clear.
“To restore honour to Israel,” said tank driver Shai Levy, 37, from Jerusalem, who in civilian life is a rabbi and teaches in a seminary. “The citizens are relying on us to defeat Hamas and remove the threat from Gaza once and for all.”
Like many reservists, Mr Levy, a father of five young children, had left his family behind in Jerusalem.
Many of those already in the field are from the Armoured Corps, who often go first into enemy territory and pave the way for the infantry. The reservists said they feel battle-ready. Mr Levy’s crew participated in a large tank drill about 18 months ago and was engaged in operational activity just a few months ago, he said.
“We’ve trained for years for this,” he said, adding, “Now it’s the real thing.”
An Israeli tank near Be’eri, one of the worst-hit communities, near the border with the Gaza Strip.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
Other units were undergoing last-minute training at their bases away from the front lines.
Around the border, some reservists caught an afternoon nap, lying on the ground under the trees just outside the gate of Be’eri, Israel, one of the worst-hit communities, where more than 100 people were killed. The tanks and armoured vehicles stirred up pillars of sand with every small manoeuvre. Israeli flags flew from their turrets.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been broadly criticised for not publicly accepting responsibility for Israel having been caught so off guard by the Hamas assault, paid a visit on Saturday to fighters in the field. He also visited two of the communities, Be’eri and Kfar Aza, where scores of civilians were slaughtered during the incursion.
Israeli reservists having a meal as their unit masses in Be’eri.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
One group of Armoured Corps reserve soldiers had set up camp in a clearing just north of Gaza. Some were old comrades in their early 50s who had served and trained together for more than three decades.
An alert sounded, warning of incoming rocket or mortar fire from Gaza, and the group squashed into a small, mobile shelter.
Motivation and morale appeared high. Emerging after a couple of loud booms, one reservist said that given the extreme cruelty shown by the Hamas infiltrators, who killed grandparents and babies, the coming battle was no longer about defending Israel but a matter of defending humanity. NYTIMES
