US general leads team of American advisers operating in Israel

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Glynn is part of a team of officers who came with experience fighting ISIS.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

The U.S. has sent a small team of senior officers who have experience fighting ISIS to advise the IDF on its imminent ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, including a three-star general, Axios reported Monday evening.

Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James Glynn’s resume includes heading the Marines’ Special Operations Command when American forces countered the spread of the Islamic extremists in Iraq.

He and his colleagues are contributing their hard-won knowledge gained in urban battles for cities like Mosul, in order to help the IDF plan its operations.

They are not, and will not, be directly involved in the operations, said the report.

Without naming the participants, a Pentagon spokesperson told the media site, “We have asked several officials with relevant experience simply to help Israeli officials think through the difficult questions ahead and explore their options. The IDF will, as always, make its own decisions.”

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby also referred to “hard questions” that would be asked by “a few” officers with “the kinds of experience that we believe is appropriate to the sorts of operations that Israel is conducting and may conduct in the future.”

“The same hard questions that we’ve been asking our Israeli counterparts since the beginning,” he added.

The Biden administration is widely supportive of Israel’s need to destroy the Hamas terrorist organization after it invaded from Gaza on October 7 and murdered 1,400 men, women, and children, and took 222 hostage, including infants and the elderly. It is also deeply concerned about the loss of innocent Arab lives that has already taken place as Israel bombs thousands of military targets that Hamas has embedded in civilian areas.

Hamas has claimed, without providing verification, that more than 5,000 residents have been killed in the aerial strikes, and that most of them were civilians, including over a thousand children. They have admitted that some of the deaths were caused by their own failed rocket launches at Israel, which the IDF says number close to 500, including one that hit a hospital.

An American official who was not authorized to discuss Glynn’s role and spoke on the condition of anonymity told AP that Glynn’s advice includes how to minimize civilian casualties.

The IDF already uses several methods to prevent what is known in military terminology as “collateral damage,” including having the air force drop dud rocket as a “roof knock” on buildings to warn their residents to get out some 15 minutes before striking them with real missiles.

Just this week, the army revealed its first use of the Iron Sting, a laser- and GPS-guided mortar munition whose precision will destroy such targets as rocket launchers without hitting homes, schools or hospitals near which they are mostly hidden.

Israel also warned Gazans eleven days ago to evacuate the northern part of the coastal enclave, thereby signaling their point of invasion, sacrificing surprise for the sake of saving civilian lives. Hamas warned the residents to stay put instead.

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