Israel and Hamas at war, day 81 | Israel further intensifies its offensive on Gaza

New bombings targeted the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, where Israel announced a new intensification of fighting against Hamas, despite international calls to silence the weapons and heavy civilian casualties in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that peace would only be achieved if Gaza is “demilitarized” and “deradicalized”, more than two and a half months after the start of the war, triggered by the bloody attack launched on October 7 by Hamas on Israeli soil.

In retaliation, Israel promised to destroy the Islamist movement, in power in Gaza since 2007. The war has caused immense destruction and a humanitarian disaster in the Gaza Strip, where famine threatens and most hospitals are out of service. .

Tuesday morning, smoke rose after a bombardment above the large town of Khan Younes, in the south of Gaza, where Israel announced that it was now concentrating most of its offensive against Hamas and which shelters many displaced people. having fled the north.

According to an AFP correspondent, Israeli strikes continued during the night, particularly on Khan Younes and the neighboring town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where tens of thousands of displaced people are crowded into makeshift camps.

Thirty bodies of victims of the bombings have been transported in the last 24 hours to the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.

The army announced Tuesday that it had struck more than a hundred Hamas targets over the past day, including tunnel entrances and military sites used to attack soldiers, notably in Jabaliya, in the north, and Khan Younes.

“We don’t stop, […] we are intensifying the fighting in the days to come. It will be a long war,” Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday, after visiting Gaza.

“Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized and Palestinian society must be deradicalized,” he also told the Wall Street Journal.

“Harrowing stories”

According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 20,674 people, mostly women, adolescents and children, were killed in Israeli military operations in Gaza, which also left nearly 55,000 injured.

In Israel, the unprecedented attack launched on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip left around 1,140 dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures available. . Around 250 people have been kidnapped by Hamas, according to Israel, of whom 129 remain detained in Gaza.

According to the army, 158 soldiers have been killed in combat since the start of its ground offensive in Gaza on October 27.

In this small, overpopulated territory, subjected by Israel to a total siege since October 9, the war has forced 1.9 million people to flee their homes, or 85% of the population according to the UN.

The last few days have been particularly deadly.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which visited Deir el-Balah hospital in the central Gaza Strip after a strike on a nearby refugee camp, heard “harrowing stories » of entire families killed, its general director, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told X on Monday.

“This latest strike on a community in Gaza clearly shows why we need a ceasefire immediately,” he said.

This Sunday strike on the al-Maghazi camp killed at least 70 people, according to the Hamas health ministry. The Israeli army said it was “verifying the incident”.

“They tell us to go to the south, to the north, to the center: these are only lies and deceptions, there is no safe area in the Gaza Strip,” he was indignant to the AFP Abou Rami Abou Al-Ais, a resident of this camp. “Children are reduced to scraps. What is the fault of these innocent children? »

The flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza has not increased significantly, despite the UN Security Council passing a resolution on Friday calling for its “immediate” and “large-scale” delivery.

In Israel, pressure continues to free the hostages. On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu was heckled during a speech in Parliament by families chanting “Now, now!” “. “What if it was your son?” », “80 days, every minute is hell”, we could read on banners.

Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, is demanding an end to the fighting before beginning new negotiations for the release of hostages.

Despite the intransigence of both camps, the Egyptian and Qatari mediators are trying to negotiate a new truce, after that of a week at the end of November which allowed the release of 105 hostages against 240 Palestinian prisoners and the entry into Gaza, from the Egypt, large humanitarian aid convoys.

US strikes in Iraq

Beyond Gaza, the specter of a widening conflict still looms, with 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 the Arabian Sea.

Attacks attributed to pro-Iranian groups against American troops have increased in Iraq and Syria.

On Tuesday, the United States announced it had carried out airstrikes against three sites used by pro-Iranian groups in Iraq.

The Iraqi government denounced a “hostile act” which killed a “member” of the security forces and injured “18 people, including civilians”. Security sources said at least one member of a pro-Iran Iraqi faction was killed and 24 others injured.

Iran also accused Israel of killing one of its senior officers in a missile strike in Syria on Monday. The Revolutionary Guards identified this brigadier general, Razi Moussavi, as a “logistical manager of the axis of resistance” in Israel, which notably includes Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.

“We consider this assassination to be a blatant attack that goes beyond the limits,” Hezbollah responded. The Israeli army declined to comment.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi warned that Israel “would certainly pay for this crime”.