Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu toured the front lines near Gaza on Saturday and declared that his forces were ready to win the war as a major ground operation was expected at any moment.
Netanyahu, wearing an armored vest, met soldiers near the Gaza Strip to show support and shake hands with them. According to the videos It was shared on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“With our fighters in the Gaza Strip, on the front line,” he wrote in an accompanying post. “We are all ready.”
Netanyahu declared war on Hamas, the Palestinian armed group that rules the Gaza Strip and invaded southern Israel last week. The initial attack led to the deaths of more than a thousand Israelis.
Israel has eliminated Hamas fighters in the south and bombed Gaza for days, but it will need to penetrate deep into the coastal enclave to achieve Netanyahu’s stated goal of eliminating the militant group.
Israeli forces have already given more than a million Palestinians in Gaza an evacuation notice, which appears to have expired as of Saturday evening local time.
The evacuation has raised fears of a major exodus of Palestinians, who can only flee from northern Gaza to the south before Israel begins its operation to expel Hamas.
The IDF is amassing troops and equipment near the Gaza border in preparation for the imminent invasion.
The commander of the IDF’s Gaza Division, Avi Rosenfeld, also gave a massive speech to Israeli forces on Saturday, declaring that “the entire country trusts us” to eliminate Hamas.
“There are no others in our place,” Rosenfeld This was stated in a video clip published by the Israeli army. “At this time we bow our heads at the terrible loss of our many friends [ … but] We are only looking to attack and defend, until we are victorious and crush and break Hamas.”
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