War between Israel and Hamas: what to remember from Saturday January 13th Franceinfo

According to Hamas, dozens of people were killed on the 99th day of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip, the south of which was shelled by the Israeli army.

Published on January 13, 2024 8:57 p.m

Reading time: 4 minutes

On January 13, 2024, smoke rises from Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. (ALI JADALLAH / ANADOLU / AFP)

The conflict between Israel and Hamas has reached its 99th day. The south of the Gaza Strip was shelled by the Israeli army on Saturday, January 13th. The Hamas Health Ministry reported a new toll of 23,843 deaths in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, during Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israeli soil that left some 1,140 people dead, according to a numbers-based AFP count shows Israeli toll. The toll in the Palestinian enclave cannot be verified by an independent source. Here's what to remember from Saturday.

According to Hamas, dozens of people were killed in the southern Gaza Strip

According to Hamas, dozens of people were killed on Saturday in the Gaza Strip, the south of which was shelled by the Israeli army. According to the health ministry of Hamas, the movement that has controlled the small, besieged and overpopulated Palestinian territory since 2007, Israeli attacks left more than 60 dead, mostly women and children, and dozens injured. On the ground in Gaza, an AFP correspondent reported intense nighttime bombings in the south, in Khan Younes, which has become the epicenter of the fighting, and in Rafah, near the border with Egypt, where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have fled clashes to the north.

The “hundred days” are “a blot on our common humanity,” said the UN

“The widespread death, destruction” and “pain of the last hundred days” since the start of the war in Gaza are “a stain on our shared humanity,” the head of the aid agency said on Saturday. Palestinian refugees from the United Nations (UNRWA). “It has been a hundred days since this devastating war began, killing and displacing people in Gaza following horrific attacks by Hamas and other groups against the people of Israel. It has been a hundred days of hardship and suffering for the hostages and their families,” said Philippe Lazzarini in a statement made during his stay in Palestinian territory.

The US military is once again attacking the Houthi rebels in Yemen

After initial American and British attacks on Friday, the American army carried out a new attack on Houthi rebel sites in Yemen on Saturday. The Houthis, who control large areas of Yemen, have stepped up their threats against international maritime traffic in the Red Sea. Houthi broadcaster al-Masirah reported strikes at at least one location in the capital Sanaa early Saturday. “The American-British enemy is targeting the capital Sanaa with an attack [certain] “Number of raids,” al-Masirah said in his report against a radar site in Yemen.

Earlier in the evening, a military source allied with the rebels and a police source said a new attack had taken place on the western city of Hodeida in response to a rocket attack by the Houthis from the port city. This strike was not immediately claimed. An AFP correspondent in Hodeida heard the sound of a rocket, followed by a huge explosion, and an hour and a half later the further sound of a distant explosion.

In the context of the war between Israel and Hamas, tensions in the Red Sea have increased in recent weeks as Houthi carried out attacks on maritime transport in solidarity with the Gaza Strip. Since Friday, the conflict has spread to Yemen, with two episodes of American and British attacks against the Houthi rebels. China condemned the US-British operations on Saturday, reiterating in the voice of its representative to the United Nations that “this does not contribute to protecting the safety of merchant ships and freedom of navigation.”

“Nobody will stop us,” warns Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Saturday, January 13, that “no one” would stop his country in the war in Gaza. “No one will stop us, neither The Hague nor the Axis of Evil nor anyone else,” he declared during a press conference in Tel Aviv, referring in particular to South Africa's lawsuit at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide in the Gaza Strip .

Emmanuel Macron calls for negotiations on the release of the hostages to be “restarted again and again”.

French President Emmanuel Macron called for negotiations on the release of the Hamas hostages to “continue to resume” in a video broadcast on social networks and during a rally in Tel Aviv in support of the hostages. “The French nation is determined that (…) all the hostages of the terrorist attacks of October 7th be released. France will not abandon its children. That is why we must continue to reopen negotiations for their release,” said Emmanuel Macron. He promised to “take them all home.”