Israel claims to have “dismantled” Hamas's “military structure” 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, eyewitnesses reported Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younes, the southern Gaza capital and the new epicenter of ongoing clashes between the Israeli army and Hamas, with Palestinian Wafa agency counting scores of dead and injured.
On Saturday evening, the Israeli army said it was now focusing more on the center and south of the Gaza Strip after the war lasted about three months and it said it had managed to defeat Hamas in the north of this tiny Palestinian territory of about 2.4 million people to defeat .
“We have completed the dismantling of Hamas' military structure in the northern Gaza Strip […] “We are now focused on dismantling Hamas in the center and south of Gaza,” Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said, specifying, however, that Hamas elements in northern Gaza were still “without structure and without commanders.” operated.
“The war must not end until we achieve something.” [nos objectifs]» They should “eliminate Hamas, free the hostages and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” said Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening, referring to three months of war.
After an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7 that killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas. This emerges from an AFP count based on Israeli death figures. About 250 people were kidnapped, including about a hundred who were released during a ceasefire in late November.
According to a recent report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip have left 22,722 dead, mostly women, children and teenagers, and more than 58,000 injured.
Israeli anti-government protesters gathered in Tel Aviv's Habima Square on Saturday evening, demanding early elections and the resignation of the government amid the ongoing war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
“We have enough! We have enough! The government is a bunch of idiots. They are taking us to a terrible place. They lead us into an unspeakable future. “Bibi Netanyahu and all his other idiots are ruining Israel and destroying everything we hoped and dreamed for,” Shachaf Netzer, 54, told AFP at the scene.
“We need new elections. We need a new government. We need a new leader,” he added, as the Israeli opposition called for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign, saying he did not have the “trust” of the population to lead a “long” military operation in Gaza.
In Paris and several provincial cities in France, thousands of people marched for a “ceasefire” and in support of the people of Gaza.
At a cemetery in Gaza City on Saturday, Palestinians reburied bodies dug up from their graves in the area where the Israeli army has been carrying out a ground offensive since late October.
In the middle of a cloud of flies, about 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 who buried the bodies told AFP.
The Israeli offensive has destroyed entire neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip and displaced 1.9 million people – 85% of the population, according to the UN – who lack water, food, medicine and care, including hospitals. Most of them are out of service.