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The Israel Defense Forces has surrounded the residence of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement on Wednesday night.
“Last night, I said that our forces can reach anywhere in the Gaza Strip,” Netanyahu said, referring to Tuesday’s press conference in which he vowed to fully demilitarize the coastal enclave.
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“Now they surround Sinwar’s house. His house is not a fortress, and he can escape, but it’s only a matter of time before we get to him,” vowed the premier. Sinwar is believed to live in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
IDF international spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Sinwar was the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel, just as Osama bin Laden was behind the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
In his prime time address to the nation on Tuesday, Netanyahu said Israel will not accept any international force in the Gaza Strip.
“Gaza must be demilitarized, and there is only one force that can take care of this demilitarization,” he said. “This force is the Israel Defense Forces. No international force can be responsible for this.”
“We saw what happened in other places where international forces were brought in for the purpose of demilitarization. I am not willing to close my eyes and accept any other arrangement,” the premier added.
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Netanyahu has repeatedly stressed that Jerusalem will maintain security control over Gaza after its forces complete the goal of defeating Hamas.
Senior officials in the Biden administration told CNN that they expect the current phase of the war involving intensive ground operations in the southern part of the Strip to last several weeks before Jerusalem “will switch to a lower intensity military strategy, which is focused on hitting specific Hamas leaders.”
“The White House is very concerned about how Israel’s actions will unfold in the coming weeks,” a senior official in the administration stressed, according to the report. The U.S. has “pointedly” warned Israel that “the IDF cannot reproduce the destructive tactics it used in the north and must do more to limit civilian casualties,” the source said.
The U.S. told Israel that the more that global opinion turns against the ground campaign, the shorter the window of time Israel has to continue the offensive in its current form while maintaining international support, the sources added.
An Israeli official agreed with the American assessment, saying, “We are in a high-intensity operation in the coming weeks, and then we will probably switch to a low-intensity mode.”
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