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The UN Security Council has called for “urgent and prolonged” humanitarian pauses in Gaza to allow more aid into the enclave. The United States, Israel's best friend, says it wants its ally to shift from bloc-busting airstrikes to operations that more specifically target Hamas leaders.
But in recent days, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli military commanders have indicated that the level of violence with which they are waging the war – already among the most destructive of the century and a source of regional instability – will continue to rise persist or even intensify.
Israeli airstrikes have injured or killed hundreds of Palestinians since Christmas Eve, many in refugee camps, according to Palestinian and international health authorities. Nineteen Israeli soldiers were killed Fighting with militants has erupted over the past four days, one of the bloodiest stretches for Israel since the campaign ostensibly aimed at destroying Hamas began on October 7.
The few hospitals that are still functioning in Gaza are way over capacity, aid workers say.
But the war is “far from over,” Netanyahu said on Monday during a visit to Gaza.
“We are expanding the fight in the coming days,” he said in comments from his Likud party. “It’s going to be a long fight.”
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday the country had been attacked from “seven different theaters” since the start of the war – Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran – and had “responded and acted.” six.
“Anyone who acts against us is a target,” Gallant told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. “There is no one who is immune from this.”
The Security Council adopted one last week Resolution calling for a second humanitarian pause to provide some relief to civilians in the Gaza Strip. Nearly 21,000 people have been killed in the enclave since October 7; Water, food, shelter and medical care are severely limited.
To avoid a US veto, Council members shied away from calling for a ceasefire. In the days since, Israel has signaled an escalation of its offensive by bombing the central Gaza Strip from the air and ordering residents to evacuate to other areas of the Strip.
The unrelenting violence has exposed a contradiction between the Biden administration's stated commitment to easing civilian suffering and its unwavering support for Israel's campaign against Hamas, a common enemy. Washington gives Israel weapons for use and political cover at the United Nations – support that has allowed the offensive to continue.
Every day this happens, hundreds of Palestinians are killed in Gaza, according to authorities.
Netanyahu wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Monday that the Gaza war would lead to this ends when Israel wins, and not before. “Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized and Palestinian society must be de-radicalized,” he wrote in an editorial.
The Biden administration has pushed for the Palestinian Authority, the governing body in the occupied West Bank, to play a central role in Gaza after the war. Netanyahu bluntly rejected this idea. “The expectation that the Palestinian Authority will demilitarize Gaza is a pipe dream,” he wrote.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, chief of Israel's General Staff, said Tuesday: “There are no magic solutions or shortcuts to the fundamental dismantling of a terrorist organization, other than persistent and determined fighting. And we are very, very determined.”
“We will reach the Hamas leadership, whether it takes a week or months.”
Hamas militants poured out of Gaza early on October 7 to attack Israeli communities near the enclave. They summoned around 1,200 people and kidnapped another 240 as hostages. On this day, the Israeli Defense Forces launched their campaign.
Amid rising tensions between the Biden administration and the Netanyahu government, a senior Israeli official and close adviser to the prime minister traveled to Washington on Tuesday for meetings with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
Ron Dermer, Israel's strategic affairs minister and former ambassador to the United States, planned to hold “face-to-face consultations on a range of issues related to the conflict in Gaza and the return of hostages held by Hamas,” according to the National Security Agency Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said in a statement. U.S. officials said they had urged Israeli commanders to enter a “new phase” of the war – one in which fewer civilians would be at risk.
A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks, said Tuesday evening that they had “addressed the transition to a different phase of the war to maximize focus on high-value Hamas targets.” practical steps to improve the humanitarian situation, efforts to repatriate remaining hostages and planning for “the day after” in Gaza.
Gaza's Health Ministry said on Tuesday that 20,915 people have been killed in the enclave by the Israeli military since October 7. The ministry said 241 people were killed between Monday and Tuesday.
The IDF attacked at least three areas in the central Gaza Strip on Saturday and Sunday, including the Bureij and Maghazi refugee camps the city of Deir al-Balah, to which Israel called on residents of the Gaza Strip to flee on Friday. An Israeli attack on an apartment block in Maghazi late Sunday killed at least 80 people, Iyad Abu Zaher, director of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, told The Washington Post on Monday.
The IDF said the incident was being reviewed.
Abeer Dawwas, 31, said she was preparing a meager dinner for her children at Maghazi camp Late Sunday there were “large and violent” strikes in several homes around them.
“Because of the extreme fear, I felt like these were my last moments,” she said by phone Monday. “I hugged my children and ran with them to the ground floor. We could hear the neighbors screaming for help.”
“We were not informed of the need to evacuate and the army did not inform us that this area would be a combat zone and we would have to flee,” Dawwas said.
Seif Magango, spokesman for the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the agency was ready to do so “Very concerned about the ongoing bombardment of central Gaza by Israeli forces.” The roads connecting refugee camps in the area “have been destroyed, preventing aid supplies from reaching those in need,” he said in a statement, “and Emergency shelters and hospitals that are barely operational are completely overcrowded and understaffed.”
The IDF recently reported heavy ground fighting and airstrikes in Gaza Days including “hand-to-hand fighting” in Khan Younis in the south and around Gaza City in the north. Fourteen soldiers were killed in the enclave over the weekend. Five more deaths were announced on Monday and Tuesday, bringing the total to 161.
Palestinian officials said on Tuesday that Israel had returned the bodies of 80 people it held during the Gaza war through the Kerem Shalom border crossing. The Hamas-run government media office said Israel had not identified the bodies or said where they had been brought from. They were “mutilated,” the media outlet said in a statement, and there is “clear” evidence that organs were “stolen” from the corpses.
The claims could not be independently verified. The Israel Defense Forces referred questions about the bodies to the Israel Agency for Civilian Coordination with the Palestinians, which did not immediately respond. The bodies, wrapped in blue body bags, were buried in a mass grave on Tuesday.
Paltel, the largest Palestinian telecommunications provider, announced further cuts to internet and mobile networks across the Gaza Strip. Laith Daraghmeh, CEO of the West Bank-based telecommunications regulator, said the outage was due to fuel shortages and damage to key infrastructure in Khan Younis from Israeli bombing.
Gaza faces ongoing communications blackouts, with calls often not going through or being dropped. Israeli attacks have hampered efforts to repair damaged infrastructure, Daraghmeh said. He called for “urgent intervention by the international community.”
Hazem Balousha and Lior Soroka contributed to this report.