Israel launched a ground offensive against terrorist groups in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip late Thursday evening. Large numbers of troops backed by tanks, artillery and air support engaged with gunmen from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups, suffering casualties including Twenty-year-old Sergeant Eitan Barak, who was killed early Friday morning. A main target of the ground troops is the extensive series of tunnels underneath the border between Gaza and Israel, such as the one which terrorists used to try and carry out a massacre at Kibbutz Sufa on Thursday morning. “Hamas was surprised by the patience of the Israeli public, and by the performance of Iron Dome,” an IDF source said, adding that so far resistance to the IDF troops had been light. Read More
