Tal and Zak have no idea how long they’ll be deployed in what the Israelis call “the Gaza envelope,” the area in southern Israel that was attacked by Hamas terrorists two weeks ago.
It could be weeks, it could be months, they said. “It’s the same for everyone. No one knows,” Zak told CNN at a military camp not far from the Gaza border. The two young soldiers, whose surnames CNN isn’t revealing for security reasons, serve in an artillery unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that was moved into the area after Hamas militants killed 1,400 people and kidnapped about 200 on October 7.
Their unit is part of a massive buildup of Israeli troops and military material on the Gaza border. On top of its regular force, the IDF has also called up 300,000 reservists who reported to their bases within hours. Across Israel, highways in the vicinity of major bases are lined with thousands and thousands of cars, abandoned by reservists rushing to take up arms.
A ground incursion by Israel into Gaza now seems inevitable. On Thursday, the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, told troops gathered near the border that they would “soon see” the enclave “from the inside” and said Gaza will “never be the same.”
But what that operation might look like remains unknown. The IDF could launch a full-scale invasion, or conduct more precise incursions aimed at recovering the hostages and targeting Hamas operatives.
What will happen after that is an even bigger question. While the Israeli leadership speaks about the need to get rid of Hamas, the plan for the future of Gaza and its more than 2 million people people remains unknown.
“There is a consensus that any other option than to totally eliminate Hamas would be terrible, not just for Israel, but for the entire area, and then even globally,” said Harel Chorev, senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at the Tel Aviv University.
“What it means is basically to destroy the infrastructure there, the city under the city – what we call the Gaza City Metro,” Chorev told CNN, referring to the vast labyrinth of tunnels used to transport people and goods, store rockets and ammunition and house Hamas command and control centers. “It means breaking their backbone through any measure, and, of course, destroying the leadership, in Gaza and elsewhere,” he added.
India’s economy will become carbon neutral by the year 2070, the country’s prime minster has announced at the COP26 climate crisis summit in Glasgow. The target date is two decades beyond what scientists say is needed to avert catastrophic climate impacts. India is the last of the world’s major carbon polluters to announce a net-zero target, with China saying it would reach that goal in 2060, and the United States and the European Union aiming for 2050.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
China's carbon emissions are vast and growing, dwarfing those of other countries. Experts agree that without big reductions in China's emissions, the world cannot win the fight against climate change. In 2020, China's President Xi Jinping said his country would aim for its emissions to reach their highest point before 2030 and for carbon neutrality before 2060. His statement has now been confirmed as China's official position ahead of the COP26 global climate summit in Glasgow. But China has not said exactly how these goals will be achieved.
A crucial U.N. conference heard calls on its first day for the world's major economies to keep their promises of financial help to address the climate crisis, while big polluters India and Brazil made new commitments to cut emissions. World leaders, environmental experts and activists all pleaded for decisive action to halt the global warming which threatens the future of the planet at the start of the two-week COP26 summit in the Scottish city of Glasgow on Monday. The task facing negotiators was made even more daunting by the failure of the Group of 20 major industrial nations to agree ambitious new commitments at the weekend.