Israel will not seek to conquer, occupy or rule Gaza after the war against Hamas, but a “credible force” will be needed “to invade the Palestinian enclave if necessary to prevent the emergence of military threats,” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an interview with Fox News. “I think it is clear what the future of Gaza must look like. “Hamas will be gone: we must destroy it for the good of all, for the good of civilization and for the good of Palestinians and Israelis,” Netanyahu said. He reiterated that his government would not agree to a ceasefire in Gaza: “It would mean a surrender to Hamas, a surrender to terror and the victory of the axis of evil in Iran. Without the release of the hostages there will be no ceasefire,” stressed Israeli Prime Minister.
According to Palestinian media, the hospital’s general director, Abu Salmiya, cited six people in an Israeli attack on the Shifa hospital complex in Gaza.
Israeli troops raided Hamas’ military headquarters near Shifa Hospital in Gaza City for the first time. Further evidence of the intense fighting taking place in the Gaza Strip and the siege the army is using to detain Hamas militants in the center of the enclave. While the Palestinian Islamic Jihad released a video showing two Israeli hostages – an elderly woman and a child – it announced it wanted to free them on humanitarian grounds.
The army’s influence on Gaza is also evident in the capture of a key Hamas stronghold in Jabalya, northern Gaza, after 10 hours of fighting in the refugee camp that left 30 people dead, according to the Palestinian agency Wafa. In the battle for the Hamas military headquarters – Israel has always maintained that the Palestinian faction’s central command is hidden under the nearby Shifa hospital – the army instead announced that it had killed “50 terrorists.” There, he added, activists were “prepared for the murderous attack of October 7” and found military intelligence documents, tunnel entrances, anti-tank missile manufacturing workshops and launch stations. A complex structure in which Hamas’s strategic power centers are located: from intelligence to defense, but also “the terrorist organization’s government offices, including the Interior Ministry.” “The heart – the military spokesman summarized – of Hamas’s operational activities.”
During operations to control the northern part of the Strip, the army then announced that it had discovered a production and storage facility for weapons and drones in a residential building next to a bedroom and a child’s room in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza City. As the hunt for Hamas leaders continues: Today, Ibrahim Abu-Maghsib, head of the Central Brigade’s anti-tank missile unit in Gaza, was killed in a raid.
The video released by Islamic Jihad is the first evidence, following Hamas’s released in recent days, that the faction is holding hostages. Hanna Katzir, 77 years old, in a wheelchair and Yagil Yaacov, 13, can be seen in the two clips: Both were kidnapped on October 7th in Kibbutz Nir Oz and taken to Gaza. There was an appeal for Yaacov in Israel last night because the boy suffers from a potentially fatal peanut allergy. According to the Times of Israel, the text read out by the two hostages puts the responsibility for what happened on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: In the evening, dozens of people demonstrated in front of the prime minister’s house in Jerusalem, including family members of hostages who tried to get in to enter the house by breaking through the barriers set up by the police. Israeli media again did not broadcast the video, while military spokesman Hagari urged “not to get caught up in the trap of psychological terrorism.”
Meanwhile, Israel today opened a humanitarian corridor along the Salah ad Din road, which runs through the Gaza Strip, for the fifth consecutive day to encourage the migration of people from north to south. According to US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, the Jewish state has agreed to double this possibility and open another corridor along the coastal strip, which it firmly controls and where Israeli flags are waved in some videos on the Internet . Defense Minister Yoav Gallant firmly rejected the possibility of a ceasefire without the full release of the hostages.
If Gaza remains the main front, the West Bank will continue to burn. There were violent clashes with Israeli troops in Jenin, Nablus and Qalqilya. According to the Palestinian Authority, there were 18 deaths (14 in Jenin alone). The army said it was a counter-terrorism operation to capture wanted people and “neutralize” an armed cell. While rockets continue to fall on Israel: Since the start of the war, the army has counted over 9,500 of them, 900 of which were fired from civilian locations.
A surface-to-surface missile – which was later intercepted – was fired from the Red Sea at the city of Eilat. This appears to be a new provocation by the Houthis, allies of Iran, from Yemen. Hamas’ health ministry announced that the death toll in Gaza had reached 10,812, including 4,412 minors and 2,918 women.
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