Israel at war: Gloves are off, troops told, as offensive looms

Israel has ‘released all restraints’ on its combat troops ahead of a massive ground offensive on the Gaza Strip.

Israeli soldiers ride on a Merkava tank as it drives to an undisclosed location in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon. Picture: AFP

Israel has “released all restraints” on its combat troops ahead of a massive ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, as Joe Biden condemned the “pure, unadulterated evil” unleashed by Hamas terrorists on the Jewish state.

As the death toll from Hamas’ weekend attack on Israel rose to 1200, the country’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, told soldiers they would soon have vengeance.

Declaring Hamas would ­“regret this moment”, Mr Gallant said Israel would ensure Gazan militants could never again ­threaten the nation’s security.

“Whoever comes to decapitate, murder women, Holocaust survivors – we will eliminate him at the height of our power and without compromise,” he told soldiers.

“Hamas wanted a change in Gaza. It will change 180 degrees from what he thought. Gaza will never return to what it was.”

The warning came as the scale of Hamas’s savagery became clearer, with a reported 40 babies killed in a single farming community. Some of the infants had been beheaded, Israel’s i24 News reported, citing an account by an Israeli Defence Forces commander.

Officials in Gaza said more than 900 Palestinians had been killed since the conflict began.

Buildings destroyed by Israeli air strikes in the Jabalia camp for Palestinian refugees in Gaza City. Picture: AFP

Sydney-born grandmother Galit Carbone was among those murdered by Hamas militants. Anthony Albanese said her murder was “just horrific”.

“Our thoughts are with all those killed and injured in these ­attacks and all others affected,” the Prime Minister said.

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-CEO Alex Ryvchin said each day was bringing fresh atrocities that were traumatising the Jewish community and the wider world.

“For years, we have been told that Hamas is a resistance movement, an acceptable brand of ­jihadist,” he said.

“Now we see these people are worse than (terror group) ISIS. They are not satisfied to kill, they want to take pleasure in the horror of watching their children suffer and die. Their crimes invoke the darkest days of human history.”

Mr Biden denounced the worst attack on Israel in 50 years, saying Hamas had unleashed “pure, unadulterated evil … on this world”.

“Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of … babies being killed. Entire families slain. Women raped, assaulted, ­paraded as trophies,” he said.

“Families hid their fear for hours and hours, desperately trying to keep their children quiet to avoid drawing attention. These traumas never go away.”

Mr Biden said the US would replenish Israeli ammunition and Iron Dome missile interceptors, as the US weighs sending a second carrier strike group to the region to deter others such as the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist group from joining the fighting.

Those fears were heightened on Wednesday AEDT as Islamist militants in Syria joined Hezbollah in firing artillery shells into northern Israel. The IDF said its troops fired back into Syria, but did not provide further details.

An Israeli army self-propelled howitzer fires rounds near the border with Gaza in southern Israel.Picture: AFP

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in ­Israel on Thursday, as the US mourns 14 of its citizens killed in the attack, and 20 believed taken hostage.

After five days of fighting in ­Israel’s south, the IDF said it had dislodged holdout Hamas fighters from more than a dozen communities and was largely back in control of the region.

But late on Tuesday, in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, troops backed by helicopters and drones exchanged fire with several militants, leaving three fighters dead, the army said.

A Hamas official said on Wednesday at least 30 Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded as Israel pounded the Gaza Strip with hundreds of airstrikes overnight.

Vladimir Putin – whose forces have killed thousands of non-combatants in his war on Ukraine – told Turkish leader Recep ­Tayyip Erdogan he was concerned at the number of civilian casualties in the conflict.

“Deep concern was expressed about the continuing escalation of violence and the catastrophic increase in the number of civilian casualties,” the Kremlin said of the conversation.

Earlier, the Russian leader said the latest violence in the region was “a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East”.

The latest Israeli bombardment destroyed several buildings of the Hamas-linked Islamic University in Gaza City, a university official said, as the Israeli military confirmed it had hit dozens of Hamas targets during the night.

The IDF said fighter jets destroyed “advanced detection systems” that Hamas used to spot military aircraft, along with 80 Hamas targets in the northeastern Gaza Strip, including two bank branches used by the Islamist group to “fund terrorism”.

Israeli soldiers take a break as they hold a position along the Israel-Gaza border. Picture: AFP

Hamas said the strikes killed two of its senior figures: Zakaria Muammar led its economics section, and Jawad Abu Shamala co-ordinated ties with other Palestinian factions. The UN said four schools, six hospitals and the building housing the headquarters of the Palestinian relief agency had been damaged.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk condemned the “horrifying mass killings” of Israelis, but warned Israel’s announcement of a “complete siege” of Gaza would worsen the “already dire” humanitarian conditions.

Gaza residents said they were spending their nights in fear, with long power outages and the sound of explosions.

In Gaza City’s Rimal neighbourhood, residents climbed over rubble while the sound of explosions thudded in the distance. “There were people trapped under one of the residential buildings. They were actually texting for help and stating that they were suffocating,” one resident said.

The Israeli military warned residents of Rimal to leave the area and head toward the southern Gaza Strip.

Additional reporting: Agencies