Israel’s military acknowledged on Monday that it was still battling to drive Palestinian militants out of southern towns near the Gaza Strip and that more militants could still be crossing through breaches in the border fence, two days after an invasion that has killed hundreds and provoked furious retaliatory strikes by Israel.
“We are still fighting,” Lt. Col. Richard Hecht of the Israel Defense Forces said at a briefing on Monday morning, offering an unusually blunt assessment of the military’s struggles to turn back the invasion that began on Saturday. “We thought by this morning we’d be in a better place.”
