After more than two months of war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Prime Minister does not envisage any respite. In a column published Monday December 25 in the Wall Street JournalBenjamin Netanyahu announced an intensification of fighting in the Palestinian territory, shelled by Israeli forces in retaliation for the terrorist attack carried out by Hamas on October 7 in the Hebrew state. “We are not stopping, (…) we are intensifying the fighting in the days to come. It will be a long war,” he insisted in the columns of the American daily. “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized and Palestinian society must be deradicalized,” detailed the far-right president, ruling out entrusting the future administration of this territory to the Palestinian Authority, which he accuses of “financing and glorifying terrorism” in the occupied West Bank. “In the near future, Israel must retain primary responsibility for security in Gaza”, he repeated. Follow our live stream.
• Hamas denounces “absurd project”. According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Benjamin Netanyahu also declared himself ready to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians out of Gaza. “Our problem is not whether to allow an exit, but whether there will be countries that will be ready to absorb an exit,” he declared in front of the elected representatives of Likud, his party, according to Haaretz. The Palestinians “refuse to be deported and displaced. There can be no exile and there is no other choice but to stay on our land”he was indignant in a press release.
Regional tensions are rising a notch. The specter of a widening conflict still looms, with almost daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army on the border between Lebanon and Israel and attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels against ships in the Red Sea and in the Arabian Sea. On Monday, Iran accused Israel of killing one of its senior officers with a missile strike in Syria. Asked about this strike, the Israeli army refused to comment. But Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi warned that Israel “will certainly pay for this crime.”
Deadly strikes. An Israeli strike on Sunday evening killed at least 70 people in the al-Maghazi refugee camp (center), according to the Hamas Ministry of Health. The Israeli army, which assured that it was doing its utmost to spare civilians, said “check incident”.
The UN denounces a humanitarian catastrophe. Humanitarian aid has not increased significantly in Gaza, despite the UN Security Council passing a resolution on Friday calling for its delivery “immediate” And “in large scale”. Most of Gaza’s hospitals are out of service and in the next six weeks, all 2.4 million residents risk experiencing high levels of food insecurity, including famine, according to UN agencies. , who plead for an end to the fighting in order to distribute food aid. An argument rejected by the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eli Cohen, for whom “the conduct of the UN is a disgrace.”