Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vehemently rejected the comparison with Hitler made by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “Erdogan, who is committing genocide against the Kurds, who holds a world record for arresting journalists who oppose his government, is the last person who can lecture us,” Netanyahu said on Wednesday.
Erdogan had already attacked Netanyahu again for his actions in the Gaza war and compared him to Adolf Hitler. “We saw Israel’s Nazi camps in the stadiums, right?” Erdogan said at an event in Ankara, referring to a video on social media that appeared to show Israeli soldiers surrounding half-naked men in a stadium in Gaza. “Is there any difference in Netanyahu’s actions compared to Hitler’s actions?” Erdogan continued.
Erdogan, as head of state of a NATO country, in fact an ally of the US, also once again criticized US support for Israel. With Washington's help, Netanyahu's government managed to kill more than 20,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, he said. Erdogan is a staunch supporter of the Palestinians. He refuses to classify Islamist Hamas as terrorists and repeatedly attacks Netanyahu verbally. For example, he also referred to him as the “Butcher of Gaza”.
Israeli ground operation in the Gaza Strip
Source: OpenStreetMap; WORLD infographic
All developments in the live ticker:
2:16 pm – Report: Blinken will travel to the Middle East again next week
According to a media report, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to the Middle East again at the end of next week. Blinken is planning visits to Israel, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, the news portal “Axios” reported, citing government circles in the US, Israel and Arab states. It was his fourth trip to the region and fifth to Israel since the start of the war in Gaza. The U.S. State Department said it has no travel plans to announce at this time.
2:05 pm – Report of numerous deaths in attack near clinic in Khan Yunis
An alleged Israeli attack on a building near a hospital in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, reportedly left many people dead. A spokesman for the Hamas-controlled health authority spoke of 20 deaths and dozens of injuries. The Palestinian Red Crescent emergency service also wrote on Platform X that an attack on a residential building near Al-Amal Hospital left dozens dead and injured. The information could not initially be independently verified. An Israeli army spokesman said it was investigating the reports.
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12:26 pm – Telecommunications partially restored in Gaza
According to Palestinian information, telecommunications services in the Gaza Strip are partially functioning again. They were canceled again on Tuesday as a result of the war in Gaza.
“We would like to announce the gradual return of communications services (landline, cell phone and internet) in the central and southern areas of the Gaza Strip, following a total interruption caused by the ongoing aggression,” wrote Palestinian company Paltel, based in the West Bank, in your Twitter. Wednesday the X platform.
11:27 am – Three dead after Israeli attack in Lebanon
An Israeli attack on a residential building in southern Lebanon left three people dead, according to state media reports. The fatalities were a Hezbollah militia fighter and two civilians, media and eyewitnesses reported on Wednesday.
Lebanese state news agency NNA reported that an Israeli airstrike hit the building in the center of Bint Jubail, about three kilometers from the border, on Tuesday night. Rescue teams removed the bodies of a couple and the husband's brother from the rubble. Another family member was injured. Hezbollah described the murdered brother as a “martyr on the way to Jerusalem”, as it usually does when one of its members dies.
10:12 am – “The war will last many more months”, predicts the head of the Israeli army
The war between Israel and the Palestinian radical Islamic organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip “will last for many more months”, according to the head of the Israeli army, Herzi Halevi. The Israeli army will use various methods “to secure our achievements for a long time,” Chief of Staff General Halevi said on Tuesday.
“There are no magic solutions or shortcuts to fundamentally dismantling a terrorist organization, just a persistent and determined fight,” Halevi continued. The army is currently concentrated in the southern Gaza Strip, Halevi said. Many “terrorists” were killed and hundreds of others captured.
7:33 am – Israel increases attacks on the Gaza Strip
Despite international criticism and words of warning from its ally, the USA, Israel is intensifying its military operations in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army continued its attacks on targets in the Palestinian territory on Wednesday. Army spokesman Daniel Hagari said last night that attacks on Khan Yunis in the south of the Palestinian territory would continue and operations in refugee camps in the central Gaza Strip would be expanded.
The Israeli army ordered the evacuation of the Bureij refugee camp and its surroundings. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already announced an “intensification” of attacks and threatened “Hamas terrorists”: “We see you, we will catch you”.
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2:00 am – Israel stops automatically issuing visas to UN employees
Israel no longer wants to automatically issue visas to United Nations employees. In the future, UN staff applications will be decided on a case-by-case basis, government spokesman Eylon Levy said on Tuesday. He accused the United Nations of failing to condemn the theft of aid intended for civilians in the Gaza Strip by Hamas. The UN also did not condemn the fact that the Islamic militant group was waging war from hospitals and thus becoming complicit in Hamas' strategy of using people as protective shields. Hamas rejected the accusations.
Israel's announcement is likely to increase tensions with the United Nations. Israel has long accused the UN of expressing unjustified and disproportionate criticism of Israel in the Middle East conflict.
1h55 – Biden and Emir of Qatar discuss humanitarian aid and hostages
US President Joe Biden and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani discussed the need to free hostages in the Gaza Strip and efforts to increase humanitarian aid, according to the US presidential office. According to Qatar's state news agency, the emir received a call from Biden to discuss recent developments and ongoing joint mediation efforts to calm the situation in the coastal strip and reach a permanent ceasefire. Qatar and Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Israel and the militant Hamas in late November. Current diplomatic efforts to reach a new ceasefire have made little progress so far.
12:20 pm – Israel reports explosion near the embassy in New Delhi
Israel interpreted an explosion near its embassy in the Indian capital, New Delhi, as a possible attack. The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the incident occurred on Tuesday morning (local time). Nobody was injured. Israel's National Security Council spoke of a possible attack attempt.
The Ministry of External Affairs has warned Israeli citizens in India to be cautious. They should not identify themselves as Israelis and avoid busy places where many Israelis tend to congregate. As a precaution, you should also keep your travel plans to yourself.
11:09 pm – Bodies of 80 Palestinians buried in Gaza after being returned by Israel
The bodies of 80 Palestinians were returned from Israel to the Gaza Strip and buried in a mass grave. The Red Cross has handed over the remains of people killed in the Gaza war to local authorities in the Palestinian territory, journalists from the AFP news agency reported.
10:24 pm – US military shoots down Houthi drones and missiles over the Red Sea
The US military said it shot down 12 attack drones and five missiles fired by Houthi rebels in Yemen, in the southern Red Sea. Among other things, F/A-18 Super Hornet fighters from a US aircraft carrier group were in use. No ships in the area were damaged and there were no reports of any injuries, US Middle East Regional Command (Centcom) said on Platform X. The Houthis had kamikaze drones, three anti-ship ballistic missiles and fired two cruise missiles. over a period of about 10 hours on Tuesday.
Yemen's Shiite rebels recently announced that they had attacked, among other things, a merchant ship. A statement from the pro-Iranian group said the crew of the MSC United ship ignored several warnings. The ship was then attacked with missiles. It was initially unclear whether there were any injuries or damage.
10:07 pm – Paris “seriously concerned” about the announced expansion of the Israeli offensive
The French government has expressed concern about Israel's strategy in the fight against the radical Islamic group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. France is “seriously concerned” by Israel’s announcement that it will “intensify and expand” its military deployment, the Foreign Ministry in Paris said. The ministry reiterated its call for an “immediate ceasefire” and lamented the many civilian casualties in the “systematic bombing” of the Gaza Strip in recent days. Israel must take “concrete measures to protect civilian lives” in Palestinian territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on Monday that he would expand military operations against Hamas. Israel's army chief, Herzi Halevi, said on Tuesday that the war would “last many more months.”
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