A retired Israeli general who fended off Hamas fighters with just a pistol said the only way to solve the conflict is to eliminate Gaza, The New York Times reported.
Within minutes after reports of rocket fire from Gaza and Hamas terrorists storming settlements and military outposts in Israel Saturday morning, retired Israel Defense Forces(IDF) general Israel Ziv grabbed a pistol and rushed to the scene of the crime, The New York Times reported, citing Ziv himself and other current and former officers who fought alongside him. Ziv fought Hamas terrorists near the Gaza border before the military had organized a response and participated in rescue efforts at the kibbutzim and desert rave that turned into bloody massacres.
Ziv said the scale and brutality of the attack, which caught the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu- led government by surprise, reflects the failure of Israel to appropriately deal with the threat of Hamas.
“So now we need to change the whole doctrine about Gaza. No more Hamas,” Ziv said, according to the NYT. When asked how to get rid of Hamas, he said, “Level the ground.”
Ziv, the former head of the IDF’s operations directorate, is a well-known figure in Israel for his criticism of Netanyahu, according to the NYT. He has spurred a movement among civilians to arm themselves, which only gained traction after the failure of the IDF and government to protect Israelis from the incursion by terrorists.
In the early stages of the attack, Hamas militants raided settlements, setting fire to homes and murdering civilians. Small contingents of Israeli soldiers responded with force, but in many cases were too late to prevent the killing of at least 700 civilians in the first day, according to the NYT. The death toll stands so far at 1,200 Israelis. They were outnumbered and disorganized, Ziv told the NYT.
He and another retired general, Noam Tibon, joined forces with one group. They drove an Audi down the road near Gaza, with Ziv firing his 9-millimeter pistol at Hamas gunmen.
They saw bodies of dead Israelis on the highway and in the kibbutzim, according to the NYT. “No one could imagine they would do what they did,” Ziv said, according to the NYT. “It is a brutality that we have not witnessed since the establishment of Israel.”
Ziv spent the next 24 hours driving to different communities to help coordinate evacuations and relay information to the IDF for dispatching backup forces. He reached the site of the open-air rave Saturday evening; by that time it was desolate, strewn with burnt-out cars and bloody corpses.
“Hamas planned this for a long time. But they knew a critical mass would be here this weekend,” Ziv speculated to the NYT “People don’t understand how fragile the situation is,” Ziv said. “Hamas has to pay for this with their existence.”
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