Seymour Hersh: The Labyrinth War
I was told by a military expert, who has served in combat with the IDF, that the tank movements were the beginning of a second phase of its combat operations against Hamas. The goal, he said, is to break Hamas’s defensive perimeter around its main bunkers and tunnels in the center of Gaza City. The tank columns “are not rushing into the center. Rather, they stay put on the perimeters, firing in from a distance.”
Given all the obstacles to their rescue, the fate of the hostages is uncertain. The Hamas leaders have refused to allow the International Red Cross to visit the hostages. And I was told by a well informed Israeli that two weeks ago Netanyahu instructed Israel’s foreign and domestic intelligence agencies “to hunt down and kill every single Hamas political and military leader” in the Middle East. “Israel, ruthlessly,” I was told, “is going after the families, wives, kids, brothers, sisters, parents of Hamas political and military leaders.” He said fourteen members of the family of Ismail Haniya, the political leader of Hamas based in Qatar, had already been killed. Within two days of the October 7 raid, he said, the widow of Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, a Hamas co-founder who was assassinated in 2004, was killed. Similarly, he said, eight members of the family of Muhammed Deif, the Hamas military leader, were killed in safe homes.
“From Israel’s perspective,” the Israeli told me, “It is now a no-holds-barred war.”
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