The war between Israel and Hamas, which entered its 57th day on Saturday, was triggered by the bloody and unprecedented attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on October 7 on Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip, where it took power in 2007.
• Read also: Gaza: hundreds of targets hit by Israel, nearly 240 dead
• Read also: In a Gaza morgue, the ballet of death has resumed
• Read also: In Israel, women denounce international silence on allegations of Hamas sex crimes
According to Israel, 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed during this attack during which around 240 people were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip.
In retaliation, Israel, which vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, relentlessly bombed the small Palestinian territory, where its army entered, before the start of a truce on November 24.
AFP
The Israeli army and Hamas resumed bombing and fighting after the pause expired Friday morning.
More than 15,000 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the start of the conflict, including more than 6,150 under the age of 18, according to the Hamas government.
Here are the latest developments:
The truce between Israel and Hamas, which allowed the release of 105 hostages and that of 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel as well as the entry of more humanitarian aid into Gaza, expired Friday morning, and hostilities resumed immediately .
On Saturday, the Hamas-led government in the small Palestinian territory announced that 240 people had been killed and 650 others injured since the truce expired.
The Israeli army claimed to have targeted more than 400 targets in the Gaza Strip since Friday, including more than 50 in the Khan Younes region (south), saying it had “hit terrorists and Hamas infrastructure”.
The Israeli army sent text messages to residents in several areas, ordering them to “leave immediately.”
“Terrorist cells”, a “mosque used by Islamic Jihad (the other major Islamist movement in Gaza) as an operational command center” and a “weapons storage complex” were also targeted in the north of the Gaza Strip by artillery fire and airstrikes, the army detailed.
The armed wing of Hamas and that of Islamic Jihad announced for their part that they had fired “barrages of rockets” towards Israeli communities near the Gaza Strip. An Israeli army spokesperson spoke of “more than 250 rockets” fired towards Israel since Friday morning, without reporting any casualties.
Israeli negotiators, who were continuing discussions in Qatar on a new truce with Hamas, returned to Israel because the dialogue was “at an impasse,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Saturday.
The war against Hamas will continue until “all its objectives are achieved”, including the destruction of the Palestinian Islamist movement, Mr. Netanyahu said on Saturday evening.
Earlier, French President Emmanuel Macron had warned Israel that the objective of “total destruction of Hamas” must be “specified” because it risked generating “ten years” of war, thus calling for it to “redouble efforts to achieve a lasting ceasefire.
The Palestinian Red Crescent indicated on Saturday that it had “received aid trucks” via the Egyptian Rafah terminal, the border post with Gaza, the first since the end of the truce.