At least 18 Palestinians were killed Monday in Israeli raids that hit several families in the Gaza Strip, rescuers said, as the Islamist movement Hamas claimed it had the strength to continue “resisting” Israel.
On Israel’s northern front, with Lebanese Hezbollah, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the possibility of a diplomatic solution to end cross-border clashes with the pro-Iranian movement was “fading away,” a sign of Israel’s loss of patience.
Nearly a year after the start of a devastating war in Gaza, triggered by an attack by the Palestinian Hamas against Israel on October 7, Israeli retaliatory operations continue unabated in the besieged territory, which is in the grip of a humanitarian and health catastrophe.
On Monday morning, a strike hit the Al-Qassas family home in Nousseirat (centre), killing ten people, a hospital source told AFP.
Covered in bloody white sheets, several victims, including a child, were taken to the al-Awda hospital in Nousseirat, according to images from AFPTV. There, a man, Abou Rachad al-Qassas, cries over the body of a relative, before being joined by other Palestinians to pray in front of three bodies.
“They bombed my house while we were sleeping, without any prior warning. […] “My grandchildren are dead,” Abu Rashad al-Qassas said in a trembling voice. “I tell the world that [le premier ministre israélien Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government are criminals […]. »
In the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City (north), six Palestinians were killed in a strike on the home of the Bassal family, according to the Civil Defense. And in Rafah (south), two others died in a raid that hit the home of the Abou Chaar family, according to the same source.
“Like an earthquake”
“We were at home when a missile fell in the neighborhood. It was like an earthquake. Children, women were at home. They died,” said resident Mahmoud Abu Foul after a strike on Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood.
On October 7, commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel carried out an attack of unprecedented scale and violence, which resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official figures that include hostages killed in captivity.
Of the 251 people abducted during the attack, 97 are still being held in Gaza, 33 of whom have been declared dead by the army.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007 and is listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States.
Its army launched an aerial bombardment campaign in Gaza followed by a ground offensive on October 27 that allowed it to gradually seize large areas of the small territory, occupied by Israel from 1967 to 2005.
At least 41,226 people have died in the Israeli offensive, according to a latest report from the Hamas government’s health ministry in Gaza, which does not detail the fighters and civilians killed. And almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants have been forced to move.
“Ability to resist”
After eleven months of Israeli operations against Hamas, its leaders and infrastructure in Gaza, a senior member of the movement, Osama Hamdan, told AFP on Sunday that “the resistance’s capacity to continue” was “high.”
“There were martyrs and sacrifices […]but in return there has been an accumulation of experiences and the recruitment of new generations within the resistance,” he said.
Claiming to act in “solidarity” with Palestinians in Gaza, Houthi rebels in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon opened fronts against Israel after the war began.
On Sunday, a missile strike claimed by the Houthis landed in an open area in central Israel, causing no casualties. Israel warned that they would pay “a heavy price.”
According to Israeli media, Amos Hochstein, special envoy of US President Joe Biden, arrived in Israel on Monday to try to calm the front between Israel and Hezbollah, after months of futile attempts. In the meantime, cross-border violence continues.