The Israeli army shelled the Gaza Strip on Sunday, where the human toll exceeded 25,000 deaths according to Hamas at 107e day of the war for control of the small Palestinian territory, which is exacerbating regional tensions.
Israel must “ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat”, which “contradicts the demand for Palestinian sovereignty”, repeated its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a new rejection of American, European and UN calls for the creation of a Palestinian state.
On the ground, Hamas, which took power in Gaza in 2007, reported numerous air strikes and artillery fire, particularly in Khan Younes, the large southern city, now the epicenter of the fighting.
According to the Palestinian Islamist movement, 178 people have died in the last 24 hours in these operations, with the Israeli army announcing that it had “eliminated terrorists” in Khan Younes.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
View of Khan Younes, from Rafah, January 21
The army is also carrying out operations around Jabaliya, in northern Gaza, according to witnesses.
In southern Israel, sirens warning of rockets fired from Gaza rang out in the community village of Kissoufim.
The war was triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, which resulted in the death of 1,140 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 people were kidnapped during the attack, including around a hundred released at the end of November. One hundred and thirty-two are still in Gaza, of whom at least 27 have been killed, according to the same count.
“Little oxygen”
The army said on Saturday that it had discovered a tunnel in Khan Younes where “around twenty hostages” were locked up “without daylight”, with “little oxygen and terrible humidity”. The soldiers found drawings there made by a five-year-old captive child.
PHOTO PROVIDED BY THE ISRAELI ARMY VIA AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A tunnel discovered in Khan Younes
The air and ground offensive carried out by Israel to “annihilate” Hamas in Gaza killed 25,105 people, the vast majority civilians, and injured 62,681, the Palestinian movement’s Ministry of Health said on Sunday.
At least 1.7 of the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants of the small besieged territory have had to leave their homes, according to the UN, and the population lacks everything, exposed to the risk of famine and epidemics, warns the UN.
According to the Hamas health ministry, there has been “no progress” in increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza.
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.
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 displaced people took refuge, noted the AFP.
Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh, based in Qatar, discussed Saturday in Turkey with the head of Turkish diplomacy, Hakan Fidan, the “establishment of a ceasefire in Gaza as quickly as possible, the increased humanitarian aid, release of hostages and a two-state solution for permanent peace,” according to diplomatic sources on Sunday.
The Netanyahu government remains deaf to international calls for a humanitarian ceasefire, vowing to prolong the war “until total victory” against Hamas, classified as terrorist by the United States and the European Union.
In Tel Aviv, thousands of Israelis demonstrated on Saturday to demand the departure of the prime minister, accused of wanting above all to stay in power.
PHOTO ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI, REUTERS
Demonstration against the Netanyahu government in Tel Aviv, January 20
Iranian threats
The war is exacerbating tensions between Israel and Hamas’s allies within the “axis of resistance” which also includes Iran, Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthi rebels.
Iran has threatened Israel with reprisals after accusing it of killing five Iranian “military advisers” in a strike in Damascus on Saturday.
The same day, in western Iraq, a new attack targeted a base housing American troops, claimed by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, a nebula of pro-Iran fighters.
On the Israeli-Lebanese border, where there have been daily exchanges of fire between Israeli soldiers and Hezbollah fighters since October 7, a civilian and a fighter were killed on Saturday in an Israeli strike.
And the United States launched new strikes on Saturday against Houthi sites, in the face of repeated attacks on merchant ships by these rebels off the coast of Yemen.
The West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, is 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 and destroyed two family homes in Hebron belonging to Palestinian fighters.
According to the Palestinian Authority, since October 7 at least 364 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank, separated from Gaza by Israeli territory.