Air Force says it’s hitting Gaza on an ‘unprecedented scale’

Brig. Gen. Omer Tishler, the Israel Air Force’s chief of staff, says fighter jets are striking the Gaza Strip on an “unprecedented scale.”

“We are attacking the Gaza Strip on an unprecedented scale, because what happened here is something that has never happened before. There is an enemy here firing rockets, raiding a civilian population,” Tishler says in a call with reporters.

“We are never going back to that,” he says.

Tishler says the IAF is not targeting civilians in the Gaza Strip, but that the strikes are no longer “surgical.”

“We do not act like the other side, we do not attack the civilian population. Behind every attack there is a target,” he says.

“We act precisely and professionally but not surgically. I’m not talking about single, tens, or hundreds [of strikes]. We are talking about thousands of munitions,” Tishler says.

He says patience is required if Israel wants to destroy Hamas’s assets. “I look ahead: this machine will work, attack and destroy. This is how you operate if you want to root out the centers of terror.”