Well those "officials" declined to say who they were, and I'm not sure that the NYT is necessarily a neutral source. Nigel, forgive me for failing to root out a two-week-old piece in a foreign newspaper. In other words, sheesh. I'm confident that there's some substance in the reports but nothing I've seen adds up to proof. And I'm pretty sure that any military outfit worth its salt would build up its reserves of all sorts of things if they were planning a conflict. You might also reflect on the things that Israel has deprived blockaded Gaza of during the last 16 years.