Israel-Gaza war
Guardianship staff and agencies
Monday, December 11, 2023, 04:14 GMT
Israeli tanks have reached the heart of the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis as Hamas renewed demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners while threatening the lives of hostages still held.
Residents of Khan Younis said tanks reached the main north-south road through the town on Sunday after intense fighting overnight that slowed the Israeli advance from the east. Warplanes reportedly bombed the area west of the attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said dozens of Hamas fighters had surrendered, calling it the beginning of the end for the organization. The Palestinian militant group denied this, calling the claim “false and baseless.”
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In a statement on Sunday, Hamas said that none of the hostages still held would leave Gaza alive unless Israel met its demands for the prisoners' release. In a televised statement, a Hamas spokesman said the movement was “ready to release all soldiers in exchange for all our prisoners.”
The latest conflict began after Hamas launched the deadliest attack ever on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and returning about 240 hostages to Gaza.
According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, Israel responded with a relentless military offensive that reduced much of the Gaza Strip to rubble and killed nearly 18,000 people, mostly women and children. Around 49,500 people were injured.
According to an Israeli analysis, 61% of those killed in airstrikes early in the campaign were civilians.
After weeks of fighting focused in the north, Israel launched its ground offensive in the south last week and stormed Khan Younis. According to a report by Israeli broadcaster Channel 13, Netanyahu told US President Joe Biden in a phone call over the weekend that the operation in Khan Younis would take between three and four weeks.
Smoke rises after Israeli attacks in Khan Younis. Photo: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Portal
Israel's national security adviser Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel's Channel 12 television that the US had not set a deadline for Israel to achieve its goals. “The assessment that this cannot be measured in weeks is correct, and I am not sure it can be measured in months,” he said.
With fighting now raging along nearly the entire length of the Gaza Strip and little aid arriving, international aid groups say Palestinians in the area are facing severe shortages of food, water and other basic goods.
On Sunday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres also said the “authority and credibility of the UN Security Council have been significantly undermined” after the US blocked a ceasefire resolution on Friday.
“I can promise that I will not give up,” Guterres said at the Doha Forum in Qatar.
The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is expected to vote on Tuesday on a draft resolution calling for a ceasefire, diplomats said on Sunday. Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the U.N., told the AP it was similar to the resolution the U.S. vetoed on Friday.
The General Assembly has no right of veto, but unlike the Security Council, its decisions are not legally binding.
On Sunday, the World Health Organization also warned of the collapse of the territory's aid system as the 34 countries in its Executive Council unanimously passed a resolution calling for immediate, unhindered aid deliveries to Gaza.
“Gaza’s health system is devastated and collapsing,” said WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The emergency resolution calls for the passage of medical personnel and relief supplies to Gaza. At the same time, the WHO is called on to document violence against medical staff and patients and to ensure funding for the reconstruction of hospitals.
Tedros told the board in Geneva that medical needs in Gaza had risen sharply and the risk of disease had increased, but the health system had been reduced to a third of its pre-conflict capacity.
Qatar, where Hamas' top leadership is based, said it was still working on a new ceasefire like the week-long truce it brokered last month in which 80 Israeli hostages were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners and humanitarian aid.
But Israel's relentless bombing is “narrowing the window” for success, Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said.
The prime minister said mediation efforts to end the war and release all hostages were continuing, but “regrettably we are not seeing the same willingness as in previous weeks.”
UN Secretary-General António Guterres speaks in Qatar. Photo: Portal
On Sunday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken again rejected a ceasefire.
“With Hamas still alive, still intact and … with the stated intention of repeating October 7 over and over again, that would simply perpetuate the problem,” he told ABC News.
But Blinken also said that Israel Defense Forces should ensure that “military operations are aimed at protecting civilians.”
“I think the intent is there. But the results don’t always show up,” he said.
The Biden administration has faced increased scrutiny after revelations that it bypassed Congress to deliver tank shells and reportedly failed to conduct ongoing investigations into whether Israel was committing possible war crimes.
On Saturday, the U.S. Defense and Security Cooperation Agency released a statement saying Blinken invoked emergency powers to deliver nearly 14,000 tank shells to Israel, waiving the requirement to consult Congress under the Arms Export Control Act.
The Washington Post quoted unnamed officials as admitting that, in the case of Israel, the United States had not followed guidelines set by Biden himself in February that required all arms sales to foreign governments to be subject to rigorous and ongoing review of the recipient's records to the Geneva Conventions and other global standards for warfare would have to be subjected.
In northern Israel, violence escalated on the border with Lebanon on Sunday as Hezbollah fired explosive drones and powerful rockets at Israeli positions and Israeli airstrikes rocked several towns and villages in southern Lebanon.
Since the war in Gaza broke out two months ago, Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah have been trading blows.
A senior Hezbollah leader told Portal that Israeli airstrikes were a “new escalation” to which the group was responding with new types of attacks, be it “in the nature of the weapons.” [used] or the landing pages”.
The Israeli army said earlier in the day that “suspicious air targets” had crossed from Lebanon and two had been intercepted. Two Israeli soldiers were moderately injured by shrapnel and smoke inhalation and several others were slightly injured, it said.
Portal, Agence France-Presse and the Associated Press contributed to this report
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