Gideon’s Chariots Opens New Gaza Offensive With Aid Concessions – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

As Air Force One departed the Middle East on Friday, April 16, concluding U.S. President Donald Trump’s first international tour, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) commenced “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” — a new major offensive targeting Hamas positions across the Gaza Strip. (RELATED: Trump Should Expand the Abraham Accords to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan)

Over the weekend, the Israeli Air Force and IDF ground artillery carried out some of the most extensive bombings in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October 2023. The opening salvos of the offensive were so intense they could be heard as far away as central Israel.

Hours before the air and artillery strikes commenced, the IDF dispersed leaflets warning Gazan residents of the impending attack. The flyers showed a parting sea rising above the rubble of buildings with a Quranic verse that parallels the Exodus story from the Bible: “God Almighty said: Then We inspired Moses: ‘Strike the sea with your staff,’ and it parted, and each portion was like a great towering mountain” (Quran 26:63). Beneath the verse were the words “Residents of Gaza, the Israeli Army is coming,” next to the IDF logo and Star of David.

The weekend airstrikes and bombings in Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis, and Jabalia destroyed over 670 Hamas targets, making way for a massive IDF ground incursion. In recent weeks, the IDF had called up tens of thousands of reservists and initiated new recruiting among the Haredi community in anticipation of this operation. On Sunday, the IDF reported that “dozens of terrorists” have been killed in Gaza and IDF ground troops are destroying terrorist infrastructure above and below ground while “holding strategic areas of the strip.”

Palestinian officials reported more than 100 people in Gaza had been killed in the first 24 hours of the operation. The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza reported on Sunday that the number of casualties had reached over 400 since Thursday, with all hospitals either overwhelmed or made inoperable by waves of Israeli airstrikes. These unreliable figures cannot be verified since Hamas does not differentiate between civilians and combatants in reporting casualties.

Furthermore, Hamas intentionally embeds terrorist operatives in civilian centers and facilities to generate high civilian casualty rates. The Hamas-run Indonesian Hospital, the largest medical facility in north Gaza, was targeted over the weekend by Israeli drones. While Al-Jazeera and the United Nations accused Israel of human rights violations, they ignored the fact that Hamas used the hospital to store armaments, military equipment, and personnel.

Gideon’s Chariots commenced as Hamas failed to accept Israel’s ultimatum to release all Israeli hostages before the conclusion of President Trump’s four-day Middle East tour last week. On the first day of the president’s visit to the region, Hamas released the last U.S.–Israeli hostage, 21-year-old Edan Alexander, in what many commentators saw as the terrorist group’s gift to Trump. Alexander, who served in the IDF, was abducted by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, and spent 580 days in captivity in Gaza. Yet Hamas refused to release the other 58 Israeli hostages, at least 35 of whom are confirmed dead, thus sparking the IDF’s planned offensive. (RELATED: Trump Wins Hostage Edan Alexander’s Release)

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir stated over the weekend that the directive of Gideon’s Chariots is clear: “Defeat the enemy and destroy its infrastructure wherever we operate.” While this seems like a continuation of the never-ending, and at times ineffective, war campaigns from last year, several tactical changes and circumstantial implications make Gideon’s Chariots different.

Essential to the new strategy is rescuing the remaining hostages, not by pressuring the Hamas leadership, which has proved unwilling to negotiate, but by using ground units to locate and isolate Hamas cells holding the captives. The offensive ramp-up is also meant to pressure Hamas to agree to a new ceasefire on Israel’s terms—one that would see all hostages returned while retaining an Israeli military presence in Gaza. In this manner, the operation has taken on the nickname “Conquest of Gaza” for its long-term objective to keep IDF boots in the strip indefinitely.

According to a leaked map obtained by The Times, Gideon’s Chariots also calls for relocating Gazans in Hamas-controlled areas to designated civilian centers to limit civilian casualties while IDF ground forces work to eliminate Hamas “neighborhood by neighborhood.”

The relocation of civilians to temporary centers is also designed to facilitate new rounds of humanitarian aid without the risk of Hamas interference. While Israel had been facilitating aid to Gaza throughout the war and permitted the operation of international aid agencies, the IDF closed humanitarian crossings from Israel into Gaza on March 2 after ceasefire-hostage talks failed to reach a new resolution.

Earlier this month, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas confirmed reports that Hamas “gangs” have been looting humanitarian aid intended for Gazan civilians. The objectives of Gideon’s Chariots make concessions for the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) — a group made up of American security contractors, ex-military personnel, and aid officials — to begin facilitating new rounds of humanitarian aid to the strategic civilian centers in Gaza by the end of May.

The U.N. and other aid organizations previously involved in Gaza have criticized the new aid plan, alleging that it enforces “mass displacement” of civilians. U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher affirmed that his organization will not back any alternative plans for aid to Gaza outside the U.N. Failing to see the potential for how the GHF might effectively distribute aid to civilians, and keep it out of Hamas’s hands, Fletcher accused Israel last week of “deliberately and unashamedly imposing inhumane conditions on civilians.”

“We already have a plan,” Fletcher asserted. “We have the distribution networks. We have the trust of the communities on the ground. And we have the aid itself,” Fletcher said, calling any alternative plan a waste of time. The U.N.’s failed neutrality throughout the war has revealed that the “communities on the ground” in Gaza, whose trust the U.N. has earned, include both civilians and Hamas terrorists.

As Operation Gideon’s Chariots intensifies with combat operations to eradicate Hamas, the focus on humanitarian aid and rescuing the hostages remains a high priority. “The military will press forward with the offensive, but at the same time allow flexibility in order not to torpedo talks for a hostage deal,” IDF Gen. Zamir reiterated over the weekend, expressing hope that a deal can still be negotiated.

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