Palestinian Hamas admitted on Sunday for the first time to “errors” that caused the deaths of civilians during its attack on Israel on October 7, which sparked a war in the Gaza Strip where the human toll exceeded 25,000 deaths.
On the ground, the Islamist movement has reported numerous air strikes and artillery fire, notably in Khan Younès, the large city in the south, now the epicenter of the fighting in 107e day of war.
In a document of nearly 20 pages which delivers its “version of the facts”, Hamas assures that the “al-Aqsa flood” operation was a “necessary step” and a “normal response” to the Israeli occupation .
“Perhaps mistakes took place” in the “chaos” caused by “the sudden collapse of the security and military apparatus” on the border between Israel and Gaza, the movement recognizes.
But he denies having targeted civilians, except “by accident, and during confrontations with the occupying forces”.
This attack against military posts, localities and participants in a music festival led to the death of more than 1,140 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
Numerous videos released after the operation show armed men killing indiscriminately.
“Immediate stop to the aggression”
Some 250 people were also kidnapped and taken to Gaza, including around 100 released at the end of November as part of an exchange for Palestinian prisoners. According to Israel, 132 hostages are still held in the territory, of whom 28 are believed to have died.
The attack, of unprecedented violence and scale in the country’s history, led to an air and land offensive by Israel on the small territory, which left 25,105 people dead, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, according to a report released Sunday by the Hamas Ministry of Health.
In its document, Hamas, classified as terrorist by the United States and the European Union, demands “the immediate cessation of Israeli aggression” while Israel, which aims to “annihilate” the Islamist movement in Gaza refuses any end to the fighting without the release of the hostages.
PHOTO RONEN ZVULUN, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “categorically” rejected the “conditions” of Hamas which, according to him, demands “the end of the war, the withdrawal of our forces from Gaza” and “the release of all murderers and rapists”.
Hamas also affirms that the “Palestinian people” can “decide on the future” of the territory and rejects “international or Israeli projects”. On Saturday, Mr. Netanyahu refused future “sovereignty” for the Palestinians over the coastal strip, where Hamas took power in 2007.
“Little oxygen”
In Khan Younes, the Israeli army announced on Saturday that it had “eliminated terrorists” and discovered a tunnel in which “around twenty hostages” had been locked up with “little oxygen and terrible humidity”. The soldiers found drawings there made by a five-year-old captive child.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
View of Khan Younes, from Rafah, January 21
The army is also carrying out operations around Jabaliya (north), according to witnesses.
In a territory partly devastated by fighting, the population is exposed to the risk of famine and epidemics, warns the UN, according to which at least 1.7 of the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced.
On Sunday, dozens of displaced people, cans in hand, waited during a water distribution organized by Doctors Without Borders in Rafah, in the far south of Gaza, where hundreds of thousands of people have taken refuge, noted the AFP.
According to the Hamas health ministry, there has been “no progress” in increasing humanitarian aid deliveries to the besieged territory. Cogat, an organ of the Israeli Defense Ministry which coordinates the army’s “civil activities” in the occupied territories, indicated that 260 trucks loaded with aid entered Gaza on Sunday, “the largest number (of vehicles) ) since the start of the war.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Displaced Palestinians rummage through a trash can at a makeshift camp in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, on January 21.
Deadly Strike
The West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, is also experiencing a resurgence of violence at a level not seen in nearly 20 years. The Israeli army has carried out deadly operations there in recent days, destroying the homes of two Palestinian fighters in Hebron.
According to the Palestinian Authority, since October 7 at least 364 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank.
On the diplomatic front, the French Minister of the Armed Forces, Sébastien Lecornu, is due to meet families of hostages in Israel on Monday and then Mr. Netanyahu to discuss the situation in Gaza and the risks of escalation in the region.
PHOTO JALAA MAREY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Smoke rises above Markaba, southern Lebanon, following an Israeli strike.
The war is exacerbating tensions between Israel and Hamas’s allies within the “resistance axis” with Iran, including Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
On the Israeli-Lebanese border, where exchanges of fire are now daily, a strike attributed to Israel killed a Hezbollah fighter, according to a source close to the Lebanese movement. The Israeli army confirmed that it had carried out several strikes in the area.
Cross-border violence has left more than 195 dead in Lebanon, including at least 144 Hezbollah fighters.