TEHRAN- Israel's "imminent" invasion of the Gaza Strip was supposed to have started straight as a retaliation after the October 7 Storm operation by Hamas.
Israel's land operation on Friday night in Gaza was, by some way, the biggest ground incursion into the Gaza Strip to date and the longest.
It was also a costly experiment for a full-scale ground invasion.
There was a lot of artillery action throughout Saturday, artillery strikes, mortar rounds, and tanks were spotted moving in and out as well as troops mobilizing.
Yet it was met with stiff resistance that forced the Israeli regime to call off the entire operation and withdraw from the areas it briefly occupied after suffering losses.
It remains to be seen whether this is a prelude to a bigger, wider invasion or the beginning of a pattern of limited incursions pushing deeper into Gaza.
Hamas has spent years building up a complex network of tunnels beneath Gaza, which allows their forces to move around largely undetected.
Israelis bluntly don't know where they are in Gaza. There's a huge risk to the Israeli military. The tunnels will be booby-trapped, and Israeli forces are entering the last place they had wished to invade.
What's clear is that Israeli leaders, officials, military and political, are on edge, fully aware that sending their soldiers into the Gaza Strip could very well end up being the regime's Vietnam.
The initial full-scale invasion that was "imminent", three weeks ago, has changed to "phases" and "stages" with the Israeli narrative being drilled into those who spoke to the media or gave briefings to repeat this phrase, from the upper echelons and all the way down.
What's emerging from Israeli officials speaks volumes about how nervous the regime is to conduct a full-scale invasion.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the "supreme" goal of the war on Gaza is to "completely defeat" the Palestinian resistance and that it could take "months" to achieve.
On Saturday, Israeli war minister Yoav Gallant said, "Over the past 24 hours, we've moved on to the next phase."
A spokesperson from the Israeli prime minister's office who was asked about the latest situation on the ground in Gaza, said, "You can call it right now a stage two or a stage 1.5 of the operation." He refused to elaborate further.
A senior Israeli military official declared that "the next stage of its war" on Gaza is underway. Herzi Halev said, "This is a war with multiple stages."
He added the objectives of the war against Gaza "require a ground operation" but did not elaborate any further.
But the former head of the Israeli security council, Giora Eiland, with knowledge of the regime's thought process, spoke of different options for the occupying entity over the coming days.
He said a ground invasion was not the only choice for decision-makers. Instead, he suggested, a siege on Hamas could work.
"Militants of Hamas will eventually run out of the water, fuel, ammunition and other things, it might take a few months and then we can save a lot of casualties on our side," he said.
This is also known as collective punishment and a war crime as the entire civilian population in Gaza has been deprived by the Israelis of water, food, medicine, fuel, electricity, internet and phone calls (reports suggest the latter is slowly returning), among other basic supplies.
Hamas forces conducted a well-planned incursion into Israel on October 7, and their knowledge of the geography of the Gaza Strip will offer the group an advantage.
A lot of the young Israeli soldiers will be expected to go in unfamiliar with the territory, Hamas fighters know that they have an advantage of ground knowledge.
They are preparing booby traps.
Despite the unprecedented Israeli bombing campaign, Hamas still have thousands, if not tens of thousands of fighters, who have stayed below ground, and who are waiting for this moment. They will fight to the death and inflict maximum casualties on the invading Israeli force.
In a televised speech, Abu Ubaida, the spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, said the era of Zionism’s defeat has begun, stressing also that "the era of the enemy’s alleged military and intelligence superiority has ended."
Abu Ubaida said that the Israeli aggression and massacres against civilians were "caused by its brokenness" and the result of "great pain that it has experienced" because of its defeats.
He sent a warning to the occupation regime, saying, "We are still waiting for it to taste new types of blows."
The al-Qassam Brigades spokesman said the era of an illusion that Israel has an invincible army has eroded. He also said the resistance forces destroyed Israel’s supernatural Merkava tank in the Gaza Strip.
This comes at a time as Palestinian resistance factions continue to launch rocket salvos towards the occupied Palestinian territories in response to the massacres committed by the occupation regime against civilians in the Gaza Strip.
The regime's decision to cut telephone and internet services in the Gaza Strip coincided with its largest bombardments against civilian targets in the enclave and a failed ground offensive.
It has also isolated people in the territory from the world and from each other, with calls to loved ones, ambulances, or colleagues elsewhere.
The Israeli move, which began on Friday evening, has worsened an already desperate situation by impeding life-saving operations and preventing aid agencies from contacting their staff on the ground.
The blackout is also a means for the regime to cover up its atrocities from mounting international scrutiny following its incursion on Friday and Saturday that met with fierce resistance, resulting in both failure and casualties among the military.
What is happening today in Gaza shows how comfortable the Israelis feel in doing what they want to do and how they want to do it, regardless of what international law says and regardless of the overwhelming majority of countries and public opinion around the world outraged by its war crimes.
Meanwhile, Israeli leaflets dropped from the air that have gone viral on social media once again demand Gaza residents to evacuate south.
Many Palestinians in the north have ignored the Israeli evacuation orders, which international bodies have decried as a war crime.
It will surely leave them at great risk should Israeli ground operations expand.
However, the consensus among Palestinians, as documented by regional media, is that northern Gaza is their home and they would rather be killed by Israel forces in their homes than be displaced by Israeli forces and killed in other parts of the Gaza Strip (also known as the world's largest open-air prison).
Elsewhere, the regime and its Western allies continue to claim that Hamas does not care about or speak for the people of Gaza. Yet the organization has been the most vocal voice around the world calling for humanitarian supplies to reach the civilian population in the blockaded territory.
A senior Hamas official has called on world leaders to allow the immediate implementation of the United Nations General Assembly decision to allow humanitarian relief aid into Gaza.
On Friday, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly called for an immediate humanitarian truce and to allow aid access to the besieged civilians inside the Gaza Strip.
"We consider the decision a victory for our Palestinian people, and we demand that this aid piled up on the Egyptian side be quickly sent and distributed to all areas and hospitals in the Gaza Strip," Ghazi Hamad said.
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