A cloud of smoke rises over Khan Younes in the southern Gaza Strip during an Israeli bombardment on January 8, 2024 (AFP/-)
The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, is expected to try in Israel to achieve a de-escalation of the war in Gaza and prevent its contagion in Lebanon, where, according to a security source, an Israeli strike killed a military leader of the Hezbollah.
Shortly before Antony Blinken's arrival in Israel, after a visit to Saudi Arabia, American President Joe Biden, challenged by protesters asking him for a ceasefire in Gaza, said he was working “discreetly” to ensure that Israel increases its presence in the Gaza Strip Palestinian area “significantly reduced”. Area where the war has entered its fourth month.
Palestinians look through the windows of a minibus at a market in Rafah refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, January 8, 2024 (AFP/-)
According to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007, non-stop Israeli attacks have killed 249 people in the past 24 hours.
According to American officials, Mr. Blinken's trip is aimed at pressing Israel – which Washington supports politically and militarily – to enter a new military phase that is less costly to Palestinian lives and to establish dialogue in the region to initiate the post-war period.
Antony Blinken, who is visiting the region for the fourth time since the war began on October 7, also hopes to prevent a rise in tensions in the region, especially on the Israel-Lebanese border.
On Monday, a Hezbollah military official was killed about 10 kilometers from the border with Israel. According to a Lebanese security source, he played “a leading role in directing operations” in southern Lebanon, where there are almost daily clashes between the pro-Iranian Lebanese movement and the Israeli army.
According to Hezbollah, this is “Commander Wissam Hassan Tawil”, the highest military official of this formation, who was killed since opening a front with Israel in support of the Palestinian Hamas.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, a movement designated as terrorist by the United States and the European Union, after its unprecedented attack on its territory on October 7, which killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP news agency count. were killed for Israeli assessment.
Around 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, including about 100 who were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a ceasefire in late November. In total, 132 are still being held hostage by various Palestinian armed groups. On Monday, Islamic Jihad released a video of a live Israeli hostage.
According to a recent Hamas report on Monday, Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip claimed 23,084 lives, mostly women and minors.
– 'Desperate Needs' –
Relatives react after the body of an Israeli bombing victim was found in a car in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, January 8, 2024 (AFP/-)
The bombings there destroyed entire neighborhoods, displaced 85% of the population and triggered a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, according to the United Nations.
In the last few hours, the Israeli army attacked Khan Younes, the capital in southern Gaza and the new epicenter of the fighting, killing “ten terrorists who were preparing to fire rockets at Israel.”
According to AFPTV, a car from which rescuers and residents were removing bodies was destroyed in an attack in Rafah, on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, in the morning, and there were also reports of rocket fire from the south of the Gaza Strip towards central Israel.
“We were told that Rafah was safe, but where is the security, there is no safe place, we don't know what to do,” complained a witness, Mohammad Hejazy. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans flocked to the city, fleeing fighting further north.
According to the Qatari broadcaster, two journalists, Moustafa Thuraya and Hamza Waël Dahdouh, who worked for Al Jazeera, were killed there on Sunday in an Israeli attack on their vehicle. A third journalist on board, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.
On Monday, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said he was “very concerned about the high death toll of journalists in Gaza” and called for “the killing of all journalists” to be subject to a “thorough investigation.”
The Israeli army claimed responsibility for the shooting, telling AFP that it had “encountered a terrorist who was piloting an aircraft that posed a threat to troops” and that it was “aware of reports that two others were killed during the attack Suspects were killed.” The people who were in the same vehicle were also struck.”
In the besieged Gaza Strip, international organizations continue to warn of the ongoing health catastrophe. Humanitarian aid is arriving in small quantities, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for the delivery of “aid”.
Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's (WHO) representative in the Palestinian Territories, pleaded with AFP on Monday for a “humanitarian ceasefire, the only way to respond to the desperate needs of the people of Gaza.”
The WHO announced on
For its part, the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem accused Israel of “starving” Gaza and called for the floodgates to be opened to food aid in a new report on Monday.
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The conflict has also increased violence in the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, to levels not seen in nearly twenty years.
Nine Palestinians were killed there on Sunday, including seven in an Israeli raid on Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups, where the violence also resulted in the deaths of a policewoman and an Israeli civilian.
On Israel's northern border, the army fired shots again towards southern Lebanon on Monday morning, according to images from AFPTV. That night it claimed to have carried out airstrikes against two Hezbollah sites.
Clashes in the area intensified following the killing of Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas' number two, in Beirut on Tuesday, which was attributed to Israel.
Cross-border hostilities have left more than 180 dead in Lebanon since the war began, including more than 135 Hezbollah fighters, according to an AFP count. According to the authorities, nine soldiers and five civilians were killed on the Israeli side.