2024-01-02 18:59:00
Since the start of hostilities, 57,035 people have been injured. Photo: AFP.
Heavy bombing and fighting shook the southern city of Khan Yunis this Tuesday and Palestinian refugee camps in the central Gaza Stripa day after Israel announced that will withdraw thousands of soldiers from other areas in a possible turn in its offensive against the Islamist movement Hamas.
The Gaza Health Ministry said that at least 207 Palestinians died in the last 24 hours in Israeli attacks throughout the territory and The death toll rose to more than 22,000 and the number of injured to more than 57,000. in the enclave since the beginning of Israel’s offensive, almost three months ago.
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to press ahead with the offensive until Hamas be dismantled and the more than 100 hostages that the group still holds in Gaza be released, and the Army said this Monday that its actions in Gaza will continue “throughout” 2024.
However, in the middle of growing international pressure on Israel to reduce its offensive and before a visit to the region by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Israeli Army also said that five brigades – several thousand soldiers – will be withdrawn from Gaza in the coming weeks.
The head of US diplomacy – who is expected in Israel later this week – and President Joe Biden have repeatedly called on Netanyahu to do more to protect Gaza civilians, despite having backed Israel’s right to defend itself. of his enemies and having continued to supply him with weapons and ammunition.
Photo: AFP.
Amid these pressures, the Israeli Government said this Tuesday that it will defend itself against an accusation of genocide of Palestinians in Gaza presented last week by South Africa before the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ), based in The Hague.
“The State of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice in The Hague to reject this blood libel from South Africa,” said government spokesman Eylon Levy, who accused South Africa of “playing devil’s advocate.”
The withdrawal of part of the troops
Israeli Army spokesman Gen. Daniel Hagari said: Some of the brigades that will leave Gaza will go to their bases to continue training or rest, and that many older reservists will return home. The conflict has taken its toll on the economy by preventing reservists from returning to their jobs or businesses or resuming university studies.
Hagari did not say publicly whether the withdrawal constituted a new phase of the offensive, but Israeli media, including public broadcaster Kan, said the move was in line with plans the government has outlined for a lower-intensity campaign focused on strongholds. remaining Hamas forces and would last, as the military spokesman said, for much of the year.
Israel has said it is close to having operational control over most of northern Gaza, and that this reduces the need to have so many forces there.
However, fighting has escalated in other areas of the Palestinian territory, especially in the center and south, where many of Hamas’ military forces remain largely intact and where most of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants have fled, the 85% of whom have had to leave their homes due to violence, according to the UN.
Photo: AFP.
Multiple bombings
Hamas, allied armed groups and Palestinian residents reported heavy air and artillery strikes overnight and in the morning in Khan Yunis and agricultural areas further east, near the border with Israel, and Fighting in and around the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
There were also bombings in southern Rafah, on the border with Egypt, and fighting in the Al Maghazi refugee camp, near Bureij.
Even in northern Gaza City, which has been left largely depopulated and where Israeli troops have been fighting militants for more than two months, residents said there were clashes in different neighborhoods, as well as in the nearby Jabaliya refugee camp. Palestinian news agencies Wafa and Ma’an reported.
In Khan Yunisat least five displaced Palestinians, including a baby, died in an Israeli bombardment that hit the headquarters of the Palestinian Red Crescent, the humanitarian organization reported.
The armed wing of Hamas said it fought with a group of Israeli soldiers on Tuesday east of the Bureij camp and that he “eliminated” it, and that earlier he fired rockets at a tank in the same area.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas militants infiltrating southern Israel from Gaza killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, on October 7. The group kidnapped another 240 people, including around twenty Argentines, but more than 100 were freed in November during a week-long truce.
The victims of the conflict
At least 22,185 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed since then in Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip and 57,035 were injuredThe Ministry of Health of the territory controlled by Hamas reported this Tuesday.
The Israeli Army says it killed thousands of fighters and that 173 of its soldiers were killed since it launched its ground operation at the end of October.
The UN has warned that Gazans suffer catastrophic shortages of food, water, fuel and medicine due to the siege imposed by Israel on October 9.
Despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for “immediate” and “large-scale” humanitarian aid to Gaza, Trucks with supplies arrive in dribs and drabs.
Photo: AFP.
The future of conflict
Egypt presented a proposal to end the conflict which contemplates the phased release of all those kidnapped in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, but the top leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, said that the hostages will only be released under the conditions dictated by the group, which demands an end to the Israeli attacks. in Gaza.
“Enemy prisoners will only be released under conditions set by the resistance,” Haniyeh said in a statement.
Israel has not been clear about what will happen to Gaza after an eventual defeat of Hamas.
Israeli public television Kan reported that The Army will present a post-war plan to the Government to divide the Gaza Strip into areas controlled by tribes or clans so that it is not governed by any political organization.
Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007 after expelling the secular Fatah party from the region, which controls the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), the autonomous Palestinian government recognized by Israel and the international community. The ANP governs the West Bank, the other Palestinian territories, occupied and colonized by Israel.
The Israeli Government has rejected the PA taking control of Gaza after the end of Hamas.
Haniyeh said Tuesday that he was open to a single Palestinian government for Gaza and the West Bank. “We are open to the idea of a national government for the West Bank and Gaza,” he said.
The conflict, meanwhile, has spilled into the Middle East.
In the West Bank, five Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in two separate raids, authorities reported.
Since October 7, more than 300 Palestinians have died in the West Bank in army raids or attacks by Israeli settlers.
In addition, the Israeli Army reported that it bombed positions of the Syrian Army in Syria and the Islamist movement Hezbollah in southern Lebanon in response to yesterday’s rocket fire against northern Israel.
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