The Israeli army is waging fierce fighting in Gaza on Saturday, where nearly 25,000 people have been killed according to Hamas since the start of the war, tensions rising a notch in Syria with the death of four Iranians in a strike attributed to Israel.
“Four military advisers” were killed in an Israeli strike on a building in Damascus, announced the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s ideological army, with media in Tehran specifying that these included the leader in Syria Intelligence Guards and his deputy.
In the Palestinian territory of Gaza, an AFP correspondent reported intense artillery fire and air strikes, particularly in the Khan Younes sector, in the south, now the epicenter of military operations after a first phase in the north of the territory.
Israeli troops, supported by air and naval forces, are destroying “terrorist infrastructure” throughout the coastal strip, and have struck rocket launchers in Khan Younes, according to the army.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, has reported fierce fighting in the north of the besieged and devastated Palestinian territory.
In the past 24 hours, Israeli strikes have killed 165 Palestinians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
” In hell ”
The war was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, with around 100 released at the end of November.
In retaliation for the attack, Israel has vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, and remains deaf to calls from the UN and the international community for a humanitarian ceasefire.
According to a new report on Saturday from the Hamas Ministry of Health, 24,927 people, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, were killed and 62,108 injured in Israeli operations.
The World Health Organization has deplored “inhumane living conditions” in the territory, whose 2.4 million inhabitants lack everything. Nearly 20,000 babies have been born there “in hell” since the start of the Israeli offensive, according to UNICEF.
Regionalization of the conflict
Entering its fourth month, the conflict is exacerbating tensions between Israel and the “axis of resistance”, bringing together anti-Israeli groups such as Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis around Iran.
On Saturday, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced the death of “four military advisers” in “an air attack carried out by Israeli fighter planes” on a building in Damascus, which was destroyed.
According to the Iranian agency Mehr, these are “the head of intelligence of the Guards in Syria, his deputy” and “two other members of this force”.
Asked by AFP, the Israeli army refused to comment.
Off the coast of Yemen, Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for new shots against an American oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, provoking new American strikes against them on Friday.
On the Israeli-Lebanese border, another hot spot, the Israeli army bombed Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon, after attacks by the Lebanese movement against Israeli territory.
PHOTO RABIH DAHER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Smoke rises over the hills near the village of Odaisseh, southern Lebanon, on the border with Israel, January 20.
Biden and Netanyahu
The war is also testing Israel’s relations with its main American ally and supporter, particularly on the question, central to the post-war period, of a “two-state” solution to the conflict, a Palestinian state. viable alongside Israel.
“Israel must have security control over the entire territory west of the Jordan River”, encompassing the occupied West Bank and Gaza, “this is a necessary condition, which is in contradiction with the idea of sovereignty [palestinienne] », reaffirmed Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday.
The day after his statements, he spoke on the phone with US President Joe Biden, for the first time since December 23.
Joe Biden “still believes in the prospect and possibility” of a Palestinian state, but “recognizes that it will take a lot of work to get there,” the White House said after this interview.
“The illusion that Biden is preaching for a state of Palestine […] do not fool our people,” Hamas responded on Saturday.
The head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, for his part, maintained that the “two-state” solution must be imposed from outside, accusing Israel of having “created” and “financed” Hamas – classified as a terrorist organization by Israel. the United States and the European Union — to “prevent” the founding of a Palestinian state.