Israel and US Fear New Humiliation in Ground Invasion of Gaza
Israel's threatened ground offensive in Gaza is still on hold, almost three weeks after the devastating Hamas raid into southern Israel. Independent journalist Sam Husseini and veteran war correspondent Elijah Magnier argued that fear of another defeat was holding Israel back. | Israel fears a second military defeat by Hamas if it goes ahead with an offensive to destroy the Palestinian group and free hundreds of hostages, two journalists say. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called up some 350,000 military reservists after a surprise Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip left almost 300 Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) troops and over 1,000 civilians dead, with more than 200 taken captive. ● Earlier this week, US media reported that US President Joe Biden's government was pressuring Israel to delay its ground invasion in the hope of negotiating the release of dual US-Israeli nationals taken hostage there by the Hamas movement. But journalist Sam Husseini told Sputnik that it was not Washington holding the IDF back, but Israel's fear of taking heavy casualties in the assault. He said Netanyahu's vow to destroy Hamas in return for the October 7 attacks was merely a "pretext" for ethnic cleansing and a land-grab. 💬 "Israel is doing what it's long wanted to do, which is to go after the civilian Palestinian population, to decimate Palestinian society as much as possible in order to drive out more and more Palestinians from their lands so they can take it, so they can take the resources, the gas reserves off the coast of Gaza, for example, as well as just another ethnic cleansing as they did in 1948, 1967," Husseini said.