Israel claims to have “dismantled” the “military structure” of Hamas in northern Gaza as its war against the Palestinian Islamist movement enters its fourth month on Sunday amid fears of a regional conflagration.
Early Sunday, witnesses reported Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younes, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip and the new epicenter of ongoing clashes between the Israeli army and Hamas, with the Palestinian Wafa agency counting numerous deaths. and injured.
On Saturday evening, the Israeli army said it was now focusing more on the center and south of Gaza after some three months of war which, according to it, allowed it to defeat Hamas in the north of this Palestinian microterritory of approximately 2.4 millions of inhabitants.
“We have completed the dismantling of the Hamas military structure in the northern Gaza Strip […] We are now focused on dismantling Hamas in the center and south of Gaza,” declared Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari, specifying however that Hamas elements were still operating in the north of Gaza “without structure and without commanders.
“The war must not end until we have achieved [nos objectifs]» which are “to eliminate Hamas, recover the hostages and ensure that Gaza is no longer a threat to Israel”, declared Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening to highlight three months of war.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the Israeli death toll. Around 250 people were kidnapped, including around a hundred released during a truce at the end of November.
Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip have left 22,722 dead, mostly women, children and adolescents, and more than 58,000 injured, according to a latest report from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Israeli anti-government protesters gathered in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square on Saturday evening, calling for early elections and the resignation of the government, amid the ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“We have had enough! We have had enough! The government is a bunch of idiots. They are leading us to a horrible place. They lead us towards an unspeakable future. Bibi Netanyahu and all his other idiots are ruining Israel and destroying everything we hoped for and dreamed of,” Shachaf Netzer, 54, told AFP on the spot.
“We need new elections. We need a new government. We need a new leader,” he added as the Israeli opposition called for the departure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he did not have the “confidence” of the population to lead a “long” military campaign in Gaza.
In Paris, and in several provincial towns in France, thousands of people marched in favor of a “ceasefire” and in support of the population of Gaza.
In a cemetery in Gaza City, Palestinians on Saturday reburied bodies exhumed from their graves in this area where the Israeli army has been carrying out a ground offensive since the end of October.
In the middle of a cloud of flies, around ten men, wearing gloves and surgical masks, are busy putting them back into the ground. “We were surprised to see the bodies exhumed,” one of the men burying the bodies told AFP.
The Israeli offensive has razed entire neighborhoods of Gaza and displaced 1.9 million people – 85% of the population according to the UN – who lack water, food, medicine and care, including hospitals. mostly out of service.