Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with soldiers stationed near the northern Gaza Strip in Jerusalem on December 25, 2023.
Avi Ohayon | Anadolu | Getty Images
Israeli jets intensified attacks on central Gaza on Sunday, residents and medics said, as fighting broke out in the ruins of towns and refugee camps in a war that the Prime Minister of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu that it will take “many months” to finish.
Netanyahu’s comments signaled no let-up in a campaign that has killed thousands and leveled large parts of Gaza, while his vow to restore Israeli control of the enclave’s border with Egypt raised fresh questions over a two state solution.
Air strikes hit al-Maghazi and al-Bureij in the heart of the Palestinian enclave, killing eight people in one house and driving more to flee to Rafah on the Egyptian border from the front lines where the fighting Israeli tanks on Hamas fighters.
Read more about the Israel-Hamas war:
A Red Crescent video published on Sunday showed the chaotic aftermath of the strikes in central Gaza, as rescuers worked in the dark to lift an injured child from a smoking area.
The stated goal of the Israeli military is to eliminate Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that launched surprise cross-border attacks on Israeli towns on October 7, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and captured 240 hostages.
Israeli air and artillery bombardment has killed more than 21,800 people according to health authorities in Hamas-run Gaza, where many more are feared dead in the rubble, and pushed nearly all of its 2.3 million people from in their homes.
An Israeli soldier operates in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in this handout photo released on Dec. 29, 2023.
Israel Defense Forces | Via Reuters
The Palestinian health ministry’s casualty figures did not differentiate between fighters and civilians but the ministry said 70% of those killed in Gaza were women and under 18. Israel disputes the Palestinian death toll and says it has killed 8,000 fighters.
The war and lack of supplies have left 40% of Gazans at risk of famine, the Gaza director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on social media on Saturday.
Israel blocked most food, fuel and medicine after the attack on October 7. It said Sunday it was ready to let ships from some Western countries deliver aid directly to Gaza’s shores after checks on security in Cyprus.
People on Sunday sat outside their makeshift tents in Rafah, tied to the rubble of houses destroyed by Israeli bombardment, as some searched for food or clean water, Reuters photos showed. . In central Gaza, dark smoke rose above the fighting.
‘Where are the people going?’
The United States, Israel’s main ally, has urged it to reduce the war and European states have expressed alarm at the extent of Palestinian civilian suffering.
However, Netanyahu’s comments on Saturday, when he said he would not resign despite opinion polls showing his government is widely unpopular and defended his security record despite the October 7 attack , indicates no relief anytime soon.
He said “the war is at its height” and that Israel needs to regain control of Gaza’s border with Egypt – an area now filled with civilians who fled massacres in other parts of the enclave, leading to aid agencies to build “tent cities. “for displaced families sleeping rough on the streets.
Retaking the border could also constitute a de facto reversal of Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, raising new questions about the enclave’s future and prospects for a Palestinian state.
In his final comments as Israel’s Foreign Minister before moving to the energy portfolio on Sunday, Eli Cohen said the border is a likely source of weapons that Hamas has acquired in recent years.
Senior Palestinian Authority official Hussein al-Sheikh in the Israeli-occupied West Bank said via social media that Israel’s takeover of the border was evidence of a decision “to completely roll back the occupation”.
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately comment on Israeli plans to withdraw the border or whether Hamas weapons had entered Gaza from Egypt.
“We moved here from Khan Younis on the basis that Rafah is a safe place. There is no space in Rafah because it is crowded with the displaced,” said Umm Mohammed, 45, a displaced Palestinian woman who took refuge at the border.
“If they control the border where will people go?” he asked, saying it was “a disaster.”
Maersk cargo ship under attack
The war risks escalating into a wider regional conflict involving Hamas ally Iran and Tehran-backed groups across the Middle East.
Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah regularly exchange cross-border fire, with Israel’s military saying it hit targets in Lebanon on Sunday. Israel strikes Iran-linked targets in Syria. And Iranian-backed groups have attacked US targets in Iraq.
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group, which has been attacking shipping in the Red Sea for weeks in what it calls a response to Israel’s war on Gaza, on a Maersk cargo ship on Saturday and Sunday, the US military said.
US naval helicopters sank three of four small boats used by the Houthis in Sunday’s attack and pushed a fourth back to shore, the military said.
Israel says 174 of its military personnel have been killed in the fighting in Gaza but that its operations are making progress, including destroying several Hamas tunnels under the enclave.
Hamas media reported on Saturday that Abdel-Fattah Maali, a senior member of the group’s armed wing, was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza. It said Maali, originally from the West Bank, was freed in a 2011 prisoner swap and deported to Gaza. The reports did not specify when he was killed.
Palestinian media reported that a strike on Saturday night killed a senior cleric, Sheikh Youssef Salama, who acted as religious affairs minister in Gaza before Hamas took over the enclave.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad – both sworn to Israel’s destruction – say they continue to target Israeli forces operating in the enclave.
