Israel says it has taken first steps of military operation in Gaza City
Following a clash with Hamas south of Khan Younis in the strip on Wednesday, he said: "We will deepen the attack on Hamas in Gaza City, a stronghold of governmental and military terror for the terrorist organization."
Defrin said troops had already begun circling the outskirts of Gaza City and Hamas was now a "battered and bruised" guerrilla force.
"We have begun the preliminary operations and the first stages of the attack on Gaza City, and already now IDF forces are holding the outskirts of Gaza City," he said.
Israel's military called up tens of thousands of reservists on Wednesday in preparation for the expected assault on Gaza City, as the Israeli government considered a new proposal for a ceasefire after nearly two years of war.
The call-up signals Israel is pressing ahead with its plan to seize Gaza's biggest urban centre despite international criticism of an operation likely to force the displacement of many more Palestinians.
But a military official briefing reporters said reserve soldiers would not report for duty until September, an interval that gives mediators some time to bridge gaps between Palestinian militant group Hamas and Israel over truce terms.
Israeli troops clashed on Wednesday with more than 15 Hamas militants who emerged from tunnel shafts and attacked with gunfire and anti-tank missiles near Khan Younis, south of Gaza City, severely wounding one soldier and lightly wounding two others, an Israeli military official said.
In a statement, Hamas' Al-Qassam Brigades confirmed carrying out a raid on Israeli troops southeast of Khan Younis and engaging Israeli troops at point-blank range. It said one fighter blew himself up among the soldiers, causing casualties, during an attack that lasted several hours.
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She had appealed to him to help resolve their differences over the border, and complained that the Thai army general commanding forces there was opposing leak caused a political uproar in Thailand, prompting the constitutional court to suspend her, and badly weakening the government just as the border crisis escalated. Hun Sen has no such difficulties. Technically he has handed power to his son, Hun Manet, but after running the country for nearly 40 years it is clear he still holds the army, the ruling party and the media are firmly under his control. His motives for burning his friendship with the Shinawatras are unclear, but it seems he was preparing for a larger conflict over the the start Hun Sen posted constantly, in Khmer and English, on his Facebook page, taunting the Thai government, along with photos that showed him in army uniform or poring over military contrast the most visible figure on the Thai side has been the mercurial 2nd Army commander Lt. Gen Boonsin Padklang. 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The then-Thai military ruler was shocked by the outcome, and wanted to attack Cambodia, but was persuaded by his diplomats to grudgingly accept the verdict. Thailand's sensitivity over its 1962 loss now makes it politically impossible for it to accept an ICJ role in resolving the remaining border disputes. That has allowed Hun Sen to portray Thailand as defying international is now countering the Cambodian narrative with a more effective one of its own: the use of landmines. Both countries are signatories to the Ottawa Convention banning the use of anti-personnel mines, and Cambodia has a traumatic legacy of being one of the most mined countries in the world, for which it has received a lot of overseas Thailand's accusation that Cambodian soldiers have been laying new anti-personnel mines along the border, causing multiple injuries to Thai soldiers, is an awkward one for the government in Phnom Cambodia dismissed the allegation, saying these were old mines left from the civil war in the 1980s. The Thai government then took a group of diplomats and journalists to the border to show us what they have out on a table in the jungle, just a few hundred metres from the border, was a collection of munitions that Thai demining teams say they recovered from areas formerly occupied by Cambodian were confined to a small clearing, marked off by red and white tape. Anywhere beyond that, they said, was unsafe. 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It argues that Cambodia's refusal to admit laying mines or to agree on a plan to remove them demonstrates a lack of good faith in resolving the border has fired back by accusing Thailand of using cluster munitions and white phosphorus shells, which are not banned but can also pose a threat to non-combatants; the Thai military has acknowledged using them but only, it says, against military has also published pictures of what it says is damage to the Preah Vihear temple, a World Heritage Site, by Thai shelling, something that the Thai military has incessant volleys of accusations from both countries make any progress on their border dispute unlikely. Hun Sen and his son have benefited politically from being able to depict themselves as defenders of Cambodian soil, but the conflict has made the political challenges faced by the Thai government even has stirred intense animosity between Thai and Cambodian nationalists. Hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers have left Thailand, which will hit an already struggling Cambodian economy."Both sides are describing the border as a sacred dividing line between their countries", says Mr Strangio. "The symbolism is hugely important. This cuts to very deep questions of national identity, and it's something that neither side can afford to take a step back from at the moment."
