‘Prelude to a Ground Invasion’: CNN Reports From Gaza Border As Israel Appears to Mobilize Troops

CNN’s Jeremy Diamond took cover as rocket sirens blared in southern Israel on Wednesday as he reported on Israeli troops mobilizing near Gaza, which he noted appeared to be a “prelude to a ground invasion.”

CNN News Central was interviewing an Israeli whose family was kidnapped by Hamas when they quickly cut to Diamond.
“I am so sorry. I have to cut in. I know we will continue this, but we have to get over to Jeremy Diamond right now. Udi, he’s in southern Israel. Jeremy, what’s happening?” said anchor Kate Bolduan.

“Yeah, we just had several rockets that we just saw being fired from Gaza. The Iron Dome is intercepting overhead. We are less than ten kilometers, about six or seven miles from the Gaza border. This happened really right above our heads and behind us,” Diamond replied, adding:

What is happening here, too, is you have these armored personnel carriers that are in a formation. Again, this is, these are the scenes that we have been seeing all across these communities in southern Israel, across from the Gaza border. Is preparations, preparations, this massive mobilization that is happening of troops, 300,000 troops that are all starting to mobilize here.

I’m just going to get up as we are as we get making sure that everything’s good here. But these are the armored personnel carriers. Again, we don’t know yet that a ground invasion is happening for certain. But what we do know is that all of the preparations that would typically be made in that kind of a moment as you prepare for a ground invasion, we are seeing that we are seeing armored personnel carriers staging in specific locations along the Gaza Strip. We are seeing this massive mobilization of troops, perhaps preparations for that. And what we also saw today was a key political moment as well with this emergency government announced between Prime Minister Netanyahu and the former defense minister, a member of the opposition, Benny Gantz.

“All of this could potentially be a prelude to a ground invasion,” Diamond insisted, adding:

We know that the prime minister has said what will follow the Israeli response to Hamas’s terrorist attacks will be unprecedented. It will be unlike anything that Israel has done before to Hamas. And so that has a lot of people here in Israel thinking that a ground invasion is what is likely coming next.

The eyes of the world have been on Israel and Gaza since Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on Saturday morning and butchered some 1,200 Israelis in a devastating attack that targeted civilians in their homes and at a desert concert.

Watch the full clip above via CNN.