Israel will not be rushed into beginning a ground offensive in Gaza, retired Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Appearing on "Wake Up America," Avivi was asked whether Israel, the longer it takes to begin the offensive against Hamas, faced the possibility of squandering international support for its ground attack.
"When you prepare for a ground operation, especially when you mobilize hundreds of thousands of reservists, you need to make sure that the preparations are done the right way," Avivi told co-hosts Rob Finnerty and Alison Maloni.
"Our soldiers are preparing, training, learning their missions. Everybody is ready. Resolute. The society is all mobilized, and everybody is assisting. It's amazing to see the motivation and the strength of the Jewish people and the people of Israel."
He added that a timeline will not affect the mission's goal.
"Rest assured we will do a ground operation," Avivi said. "We'll go in, and we're going to completely destroy Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and every infrastructure that is terror inside the Gaza Strip will be completely dismantled."
Avivi, founder of Israel Defense And Security Forum, also said the Israel Defense Forces will rescue the nearly 200 hostages taken by Hamas terrorists.
"This is not the classic hostage situation where people are taken hostage, and we're talking about 200 people," he said. "There are children, there are women, elderly people. But it's not the classic chaos situation where you start to negotiate. There is no negotiation here.
"We're going in. We're going to conquer Gaza and while doing that, we're going to free them" Aviv said. "There will be no negotiations. We're going to destroy Hamas. There will be unconditional surrender in the Gaza Strip. And while doing that, we are going to release the hostages."
Avivi made a point of saying that the Israel-Hamas war is "not a local war."
"This is a global war. It's a global war against Hezbollah. It's against the Iranian, Russian, Chinese front that has emerged, and for that reason, President [Joe] Biden was pushing forward the coalition, a Western, Israeli, Sunni coalition," Avivi said. "This is what really created pressure on Iran, and this is what made Iran take the decision to order Hamas to launch this attack."
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Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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