Air Force chief says military will attack Hamas as if terror group were at full force

The chief of the Israeli Air Force says the military, during the upcoming ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, will be treating the Hamas terror group as if it was not harmed at all by the last two weeks of heavy airstrikes on its assets.

“I would not want to switch places with any enemy and meet a brigade or division of the Israel Defense Forces,” says IAF chief Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar during a briefing with senior commanders.

“With the determination I see, I leave with a very strengthened feeling and together with the [Air] Force, there is a machine here that I have no doubt will work,” Bar says.

“Until now we have hit Hamas with thousands of airstrikes, thousands of bombs that hit precisely. Hamas is not starting from scratch now,” he says.

“However, we are treating it as if it was not harmed at all,” Bar says. “We will enter with all of our power and hit [Hamas] as if it is fighting us on ‘day one.’”