Middle East Monitor / December 17, 2020
Chief of staff of the Israeli army, Aviv Kochavi, has identified 300 members of Hamas and other Palestinian armed factions, including Islamic Jihad, to target in any future war, Israel’s Maariv reported yesterday.
“Israel has a plan that aims to disrupt the enemy’s [Hamas] operations and shorten the duration of the fighting, unlike previous operations on the Gaza Strip, which lasted for more than a month,” the newspaper added. “While the option of collapsing the Hamas rule is not on the table, the Israeli army could achieve a clear victory against the Islamic movement,” the report said.
Israeli occupation forces recently launched manoeuvres on various war scenarios in the occupied Gaza Strip, where the army had estimated that it could “achieve the goals set by Kochavi”.
Israel’s last war on Gaza was in 2014 when the occupation state killed more than 2,200 Palestinians, the majority children. However in 2019 Israel killed a senior Islamic Jihad commander in Gaza, killing him and sparking the worst bout of fighting with the resistance since 2014.
