Live Update
From the Liveblog of
Friday, May 21, 2021
IDF says it warned Hamas not to fire major barrage ahead of ceasefire
Judah Ari Gross is The Times of Israel's religions and Diaspora affairs correspondent.
Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman says that before the ceasefire went into effect at 2 a.m., the military passed a message to Hamas that if it conducted a large-scale rocket attack by Hamas on central Israel, the IDF would retaliate with a massive airstrike on dozens of targets.
According to Zilberman, Israeli jets and other aircraft were kept in the air, hovering over Gaza in the hours before the ceasefire to carry out this threat if necessary.
“But we didn’t need to fulfill our plans. There was no final barrage,” Zilberman says.
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