Israel and Hamas at war, day 92 | War enters fourth month, part of Hamas “dismantled”

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.

And in the occupied West Bank, an Israeli raid left six dead on Sunday in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian factions, according to the Palestinian Authority’s Health Ministry.

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 micro-territory of around 2 .4 million 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 NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced overnight that it had evacuated its staff from a hospital in central Gaza. “The situation became so dangerous that some of our team members living in the neighborhood were not even able to leave their homes due to the constant threats from drones and snipers,” Carolina Lopez said on X, MSF emergency services coordinator in Gaza.

“The war must not end until we have achieved [nos objectifs, NDLR] » 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.

“We have had enough!” »

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 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.

To the point where Gaza has become “simply uninhabitable”, “a place of death and despair”, lamented this weekend the UN humanitarian affairs coordinator, Martin Griffiths.

“Risk of conflagration”

“Israel has proclaimed its goal of eradicating Hamas. There must be another way to eradicate Hamas which would not cause so many deaths,” pleaded Saturday the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, on a visit to Lebanon, where he deemed it “absolutely necessary” to avoid a regional conflict.

Since October 8, the day after the bloody attack by Hamas on Israeli soil, the almost daily exchanges of fire between Lebanese Hezbollah and Israeli forces have left 181 dead in Lebanon, including 135 fighters from the Shiite movement, according to a AFP count.

And these tensions have been increasing since the elimination near Beirut of Hamas’ No. 2, Saleh al-Arouri, in an airstrike attributed to Israel and which led to Hezbollah’s “initial response” on Saturday with a barrage of rockets fired towards an Israeli military base.

In Syria and Iraq, attacks on US military bases have also increased since October 7, while Houthi rebels in Yemen – supported by Iran like Hamas and Hezbollah – are disrupting global maritime traffic in the Red Sea by attacking ships in “support” of the Palestinians in Gaza.

The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, called on Saturday her Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, to urge “Iran and its cronies” to “immediately” stop their “destabilizing actions” while “the risk of conflagration regional has never been so important.

Meanwhile, the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken is in Jordan on Sunday as part of a tour of the Middle East aimed at curbing the ongoing escalation in the region.