Israel's defense minister warned Thursday that the war against Hamas in Gaza would last “more than a few months,” as an American envoy arrived to express his country's concerns about heavy civilian casualties in the besieged Palestinian territories.
• Also read: The UN warns of a “collapse” of civil order in the Gaza Strip
The United States wants the war “to end as soon as possible,” assured a White House spokesman, John Kirby. He added that national security adviser Jake Sullivan discussed a shift in Israel's offensive to “low-intensity operations” “in the near future” during his visit to Israel on Thursday.
Israel declared war on Hamas, which is in power in the Gaza Strip, in response to the Islamist movement's bloody attack on its soil on October 7, which authorities said killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, the death toll in Gaza currently stands at nearly 18,800, 70% of whom are women, children and teenagers killed by Israeli bombings.
The small devastated area has been under a total siege by Israel since October 9, causing severe shortages, and is also regularly cut off from all communication with the outside world through cuts in telephone and internet connections, according to the News Times on Thursday case was.
In Khan Younes, the large southern city, residents inspected ruins still smoking after an Israeli attack.
“A plane hit the building without warning and it was completely destroyed. About four people are still trapped under the rubble,” Hassan Bayyout, a 70-year-old man, told AFP.
The army said it carried out “targeted interventions” at several locations around Khan Younes on Thursday.
In the evening, according to AFP images, smoke rose over the neighboring town of Rafah after another strike.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who met Mr. Sullivan on Thursday, warned that the war in Gaza would “last more than a few months.”
“Hamas is a terrorist organization built over a decade to fight Israel and has built an underground and air infrastructure that is not easily destroyed. It will take time – more than a few months – but we will defeat and destroy Hamas, Gallant said.
Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh, who lives in exile in Qatar, on Wednesday called any post-war plan that envisages Gaza without his organization and other “resistance movements” an “illusion.”
Diplomatic initiatives
Diplomatic initiatives are increasing following a non-binding resolution adopted overwhelmingly by the UN General Assembly on Tuesday calling for a ceasefire.
An ardent supporter of Israel, the United States opposes an immediate ceasefire that it says would leave Hamas in control of the territory, but has expressed impatience in recent days. President Joe Biden criticized “indiscriminate bombings” and spoke of a possible “erosion” of Western support for Israel.
American Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected in Israel shortly, while French diplomatic chief Catherine Colonna is due to visit Lebanon on Saturday and Israel on Sunday.
In parallel with its campaign of devastating airstrikes launched on October 7, the Israeli army has been carrying out a ground offensive against Hamas since October 27, initially focused on the north and then expanding to the entire territory, including the south, where hundreds of thousands Civilians living displaced by war gathered.
About 240 people were also kidnapped and taken to Gaza on the day of the attack. 135 of them remain in the hands of Hamas and affiliated groups, according to the military, after 105 hostages were released during a seven-day ceasefire that ended on December 1.
The army announced on Thursday that 116 soldiers had been killed since the ground offensive began.
Soldiers discovered “huge weapons depots and tunnels in several schools” on Thursday, according to Army spokeswoman Keren Hajioff.
Israel claims that Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and especially Israel, has set up bases in civilian buildings such as hospitals, schools and mosques or in tunnels dug in their basements. -Soil, and uses the population as “human shields,” which the Islamist movement denies.
“Where is the safe zone?”
In the Gaza Strip, civilians are being pushed into smaller and smaller areas to escape attacks and face desperate humanitarian conditions.
In the far south, Rafah, the border town with Egypt, has become a vast camp made up of hundreds of tents cobbled together from pieces of wood, sheets and plastic sheeting where the displaced people live. Shelter as best they could rain as winter and cold set in.
There, too, deadly Israeli attacks occur every day.
Abu Muhammad Abu Dabaa, 53, visited the victims' remains with relatives on Thursday.
“The border with Egypt is only 300 meters away. They told us to come from north to south, and here we are in the very south. “Where is the safety zone?” he asks.
“Today Israel says the area around Rafah is safe. But there is no longer a safe area in the entire Gaza Strip,” said Dhia Abou Zin, a 32-year-old man.
According to the United Nations, around 1.9 million people, or 85% of the population, have been displaced, many times since the war began.
The United Nations continues to emphasize that humanitarian aid is inadequate and that overcrowding in the camps leads to hunger and a lack of supplies as well as disease.
The aid, the entry of which is subject to Israeli authorization via Egypt, reaches Rafah in very limited quantities, while access to the rest of the territory is cut off by the fighting.
However, Cogat, the Israeli Defense Ministry's body responsible for Palestinian civil affairs, assured that the army “allowed breaks for humanitarian reasons so that the civilian population could replenish supplies such as food and water.”
According to the Palestinian Authority, violence has also intensified in the occupied West Bank, where an Israeli raid on Thursday left 11 people dead.