Israeli troops ready to 'uproot' Hamas

New Delhi: Israel appears ready for a ground offensive in Gaza to dismantle Hamas operations in the enclave amid concerns about the safety of hostages.

Some 199 people, including foreigners, were abducted from Israel during the October 7 attack by Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that rules the Gaza Strip.

"Everything is being prepared for what we think will be a ground entry," a senior diplomat at the Israeli embassy in Delhi told IANS on Tuesday but did not indicate by when the Israeli Defence Forces would move into Gaza.

"Israel is focussed on the hostages taken by Hamas, to uproot Hamas from Gaza, and to make sure that Hamas can no longer do such things ever again, whether to Israelis or anybody else.

"The IDF is focussed on the hostages and trying to understand their situation and to make sure that they are safe, and to understand how we can save them."

It is unclear how many of the hostages are unharmed and in Gaza.

"We are still burying our dead," the diplomat said, adding that 300 more bodies of Israelis have yet to be identified, as of Monday.

Other than Hamas rocket strikes, more than 30 kibbutz(agriculture-based communities) in Israel were attacked on Oct 7.

The diplomat said "about 1,000 terrorists of Hamas infiltrated into Israeli territory" and went on a rampage of the communities.

Many analysts have called Israel's retaliatory strikes as a "collective punishment", as not all Gazans have links with Hamas or their brutal attack on Israel that killed at least 1,400 Israelis.

"Only Hamas is being held accountable," the diplomat said.

"Hamas is trying to use civilians in Gaza, while hiding in hospitals or education centres or closing the roads for them to move from the north to the south (of the enclave)."

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres has said "we are on the verge of the abyss in the Middle East" and asked Hamas to release the hostages immediately and unconditionally.

He also asked Israel to grant rapid and unimpeded access for humanitarian aid in Gaza for the "sake of the civilians".

"The IDF is collaborating with aid organisations in Gaza, they have shelters for civilians who are moving following IDF warnings about bombings or other strikes," the diplomat said.

The Jerusalem Post earlier reported that the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group is waiting for the IDF to move into Gaza with full force, which might make Israel’s border with Lebanon vulnerable to Hezbollah attacks.

But the diplomat said Israel is currently not engaged in a two-front war, even if some fire came from the Lebanese side since the Hamas attack.

Iran has warned Israel that it would not be able to act in Gaza without consequences, according to the BBC, which put the latest Palestinian death toll at 2,850, citing a Palestinian diplomat.

"Iran has been assisting Hamas for years with finance, training and ammunition," the diplomat said.

"I don't know if Iran was behind the plan for this attack, but we cannot say they had no part in it (history of association)."

US President Joe Biden is scheduled to visit Gaza on Wednesday.

Many Israelis, according to Haaretz, are angry with their government for having failed to stop the Hamas attack.

"Apparently, we were all caught by surprise," said the diplomat when asked if the Israeli government had done the assessment of why the October 7 attack happened.