The Israeli army bombed the Gaza Strip on Sunday despite international calls for restraint to protect civilians and against the backdrop of an “impasse” in renewing the ceasefire with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
Overnight, the Israeli army said it had attacked “more than 400 targets” in the Gaza Strip since fighting resumed on Friday, killing at least 240 people, according to the Hamas government’s health minister.
Hamas’ armed wing and its affiliated Islamic Jihad also said they fired “barrels of rockets” at several cities in Israel, including Tel Aviv, on Saturday.
For its part, the Israeli army reported on Saturday “more than 250 rockets fired” and two soldiers killed, the first since fighting resumed.
The Israeli army is stationed on the ground in the north of the Gaza Strip and has increased its airstrikes in the south of that territory, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced by the conflict.
“By expanding our military operations, we achieve two goals. First we strike Hamas, we eliminate more terrorists, more commanders, more terrorist infrastructure, more tunnels (…) and we create the conditions to force (Hamas) to pay a high price: the liberation of hostages.” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
“There is no other way to win but to continue our field campaign,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu added, saying that goal could be achieved through “respect for international law.”
“Too many” victims
Without questioning its ally’s right to “defend” itself against Hamas, the United States warned Israel of a rising death toll in the Gaza Strip.
“Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. “Frankly, the level of suffering and the images and videos coming to us from Gaza are devastating,” said American Vice President Kamala Harris at COP28 in Dubai. He added: “Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians.”
“I think we are at a moment in which the Israeli authorities need to define more precisely their goal and the desired end state,” French President Emmanuel Macron also said on the spot, believing that Israel’s “security” could not be guaranteed, if this is the case, “at the cost of Palestinian lives.”
“The total destruction of Hamas, what is it and does anyone think it is possible? If so, the war will last 10 years. And I believe that no one knows how to seriously define this goal, so this goal needs to be clarified,” Mr. Macron warned before having dinner in Qatar on Saturday evening with Sheikh Tamim ben Hamad Al-Thani, that country’s emir the ceasefire negotiations.
This stopover in Qatar came shortly after the Israeli negotiators left there. Israel referred to the “impasse” in talks over renewing a seven-day ceasefire that allowed the release of around a hundred hostages in the hands of Hamas and 240 Palestinian prisoners held there by Israel.
Israel and Hamas blame each other for the end of the ceasefire.
Hamas – which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and especially Israel – said it had proposed “an exchange of prisoners and the elderly” among the hostages, as well as handing over the prisoners’ bodies to Israel. “died in Israeli bombings.”
But Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Islamist movement of “violating the agreement” by “firing missiles at Israel” during the ceasefire. And Hamas claimed responsibility for an attack in Jerusalem that killed four Israelis.
“Bring” back the hostages
In Israel, hundreds of people demonstrated in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand the release of the 137 people still detained in the Gaza Strip. Many carried posters with photos of the prisoners.
Four former hostages spoke to the crowd via video feed to recount their fear, hunger and lack of sleep during their captivity. “Our daughters have seen things that children of this age or any age should not see,” said Danielle Aloni, 45, who was released Nov. 24 with her 5-year-old daughter.
Elena Trupanov, who was released on Wednesday and attended the rally in Tel Aviv, pleaded: “We have to bring back my Sasha and the rest of the prisoners,” she said, referring to her son, who is still a prisoner.
In the evening, Israel’s hostage coordinator, Gal Hirsch, met with American special envoy on the issue, Roger Carstens, and “efforts were being made to free the hostages,” Israeli authorities said without providing further details.
The war between Israel and Hamas was sparked by an unprecedented bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israel on October 7, which Israeli authorities said killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
According to the Hamas government, more than 15,000 people, including more than 6,150 under the age of 18, have died in Israeli attacks since hostilities began.
“Where?”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Saturday that it had received the first “relief trucks” since the end of the ceasefire through Egypt’s Rafah terminal, a border post with Gaza.
The needs are immense in this area, which is under a “complete siege” by Israel, where more than half of the homes have been damaged or destroyed and 1.7 million people – out of a population of 2.4 million – according to the United Nations were driven out by the war.
The southern Gaza town of Khan Younes, where some of these displaced people found refuge, came under massive Israeli bombing on Saturday.
Nader Abou Warda, 26, wonders how he is still alive after five Israeli air strikes in less than two minutes: “The Israelis told us ‘Gaza City is a war zone’; Now it is Khan Younes, the war zone. Where are we going now? In the sea?”