Samuel Schumacher in Israel: This is how the Blick reporter experienced the start of the Israeli ground offensive

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Now it begins, the ground offensive that has been announced for weeks and is feared by 2.3 million people in Gaza. “Our ground forces have passed the gates of Gaza and are standing in front of the fortress of evil,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (74) said on Saturday evening.

The Israeli army shelled more than 450 targets in Gaza this weekend. The goal is clear, Netanyahu said: “We want to destroy Hamas and bring back the hostages.” More than 220 people are currently being held by terrorists in Gaza.

A completely destroyed village

On Friday afternoon I stood in Kfar Aza, a village less than a mile from Gaza that had been attacked and completely destroyed by Hamas terrorists. Here 62 people were murdered and 17 taken hostage. Now elite Israeli fighters have taken up positions in the fractured kibbutz. The army fired artillery shells at close range every minute at Hamas positions in Gaza. Fighter jets roared across the cloudy sky.

Saturday evening I woke up to the thunderous sound of Israeli military aircraft in my hotel room in Nazareth, northern Israel. From the nearby air base, Israel carries out repeated attacks on Syria and Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon.

Many casualties on both sides

And on Sunday, on the way to Eilat in the far south of the country, I saw countless heavy military transport vehicles moving tanks and other military equipment. It feels like every second Israeli at gas stations and cafes has a gun hanging around their neck. Blue and white flags are flying everywhere. There are young soldiers on every street corner (in Israel, conscription also applies to women).

At least 1,400 Israelis and probably more than 7,700 Palestinians have been killed in the first three weeks of the new war in the Middle East. In Kfar Aza, senior Israeli officer Golan Vach, 49, told me that he had personally recovered the bodies of battered women and a decapitated baby from the rubble of the kibbutz. In recent days I have heard horror stories from Gaza about wailing children fighting for their lives under the rubble of bombed houses, out of reach.

Boys kidnapped

No one here wanted a new war. The first thing people here in Israel want is: “For our hostages to be released. That’s all that matters.” Renana Gomeh-Jacob (50) told me on Sunday in Eilat. Her two boys, aged 12 and 16, were kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza on October 7. She has not heard from them since .

The overall political situation is currently deteriorating rapidly. Saudi Arabia officially warns Israel not to expand its ground offensive in Gaza. And Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (62) thundered on Sunday that Israel had crossed “a red line”. His country must act now.

I don’t know what my contact in Gaza, with whom I communicated almost daily, should say about this. I couldn’t reach him this weekend.

Source: Blick