From Le Figaro with AFP
Published 45 minutes ago, updated 23 minutes ago
Rafah, January 5, 2024. Smoke rises over Khan Tounes in the southern Gaza Strip after an Israeli bombardment. – / AFP
UPDATE ON THE SITUATION – This Sunday the war enters its fourth month. On Saturday, the Jewish state assured that it had “dismantled” part of the terrorist group’s “military structure.”
According to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry, six people were killed this Sunday, January 7, in an Israeli raid in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank. An Israeli officer was killed in the raid, police said. Witnesses also reported Israeli airstrikes in Khan Younes, the capital in southern Gaza and the new epicenter of clashes between the Israeli army and Hamas. The Palestinian agency Wafa counts numerous dead and injured.
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.
Israel vowed to destroy the Palestinian Islamist group after its unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli casualties. About 250 people were taken hostage, and more than a hundred were released as part of a ceasefire at the end of November.
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 the Hamas military structure in the north of the Gaza Strip (…) We are now focusing on dismantling Hamas in the center and south of the Gaza Strip,” explained Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari. However, this was pointed out , that Hamas elements in northern Gaza were still operating “without structure and without commanders.”
Doctors Without Borders evacuated its staff from a hospital in central Gaza
The NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced overnight that it had evacuated its staff from a hospital in central Gaza. “The situation became so dangerous that some of our team members living in the neighborhood were unable to even leave their homes due to the constant threat of drones and snipers,” Carolina Lopez, Médecins Sans Frontières emergency services coordinator in Gaza, said on X.
“The war must not stop until we achieve (our goals, editor's note),” namely, “eliminate Hamas, free the hostages and ensure that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening to mark the three-month war.
According to Hamas, there were 22,722 deaths in the Gaza Strip
According to a recent report from the Hamas Ministry of Health, Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip left 22,722 dead, mostly women, children and teenagers, and more than 58,000 injured. These figures could not be independently verified.
The Israeli offensive has leveled entire neighborhoods of Gaza 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.
Gaza has “simply become uninhabitable,” “a place of death and despair,” complained the United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Coordinator Martin Griffiths this weekend.
Anti-government protests in Tel Aviv
Israeli anti-government protesters gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening, demanding early elections and the resignation of the government. “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 of,” 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 the departure of Benjamin Netanyahu, reiterating that he does not have the “trust” of the population to lead a military election campaign in Gaza.
Exchange of fire with Hezbollah
Since October 8, the day after Hamas's bloody attack on Israeli soil, almost daily exchanges of fire between Lebanon's Hezbollah and Israeli forces have left 181 people dead in Lebanon, including 135 fighters from the Shiite movement, according to an AFP count.
Those tensions have increased since Hamas No. 2 Saleh al-Arouri was eliminated near Beirut in an airstrike attributed to Israel that led to Hezbollah's “initial response” with rocket fire on a base on Saturday. Israeli military.
Flashing in Jordan
Meanwhile, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, is in Jordan on Sunday as part of a tour of the Middle East to contain this escalation.