2023-12-25 00:56:12
Time.news – Christmas does not stop the war in Gaza. Despite appeals for peace, the dead and injured are increasing every day in the Gaza Strip, whose population no longer knows where to take refuge, while the Israeli army is also paying the price, in one of the days with the most victims since the beginning of the war.
At least 70 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli attack on a refugee camp in al-Maghazi, in the center of the Strip. This was announced by the Hamas Ministry of Health which speaks of at least three homes destroyed. When asked about the matter, the Israeli military said it was “verifying” the information. Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said the bombing destroyed “a block of inhabited houses” and that the toll was “likely to increase” due to the large number of families present at the time of the attack. Since the conflict began, over 20 thousand Palestinians have died and at least 54 thousand have been injured.
Israel, meanwhile, has ordered the evacuation of eight cities in the center of the Strip so that residents can move to the city of Deir al Balah, where there have been five fatal bombings in the last 48 hours. “There is nowhere to go in Gaza”, complain many of those displaced by the Israeli offensive, as not even continuing to flee is safe for those who have been doing so for more than two and a half months of war.
“There is no safe zone in the Gaza Strip,” Sabri Abdelrahim told EFE in the Bureij refugee camp, which Israel has ordered more than 150,000 people to abandon. Many don’t want to leave, but the bombings make them think and in the end the majority decide to flee, repeating the images of cars and trucks full of people, others on carts pulled by donkeys with everything they left behind.
Children, elderly people, women, along with mattresses, blankets, kitchen utensils and canned food, while Israeli planes fly overhead. Among the Israeli ranks, however, fourteen soldiers have died in the last 48 hours, one of the bloodiest days for the Jewish army since the start of the ground offensive in the enclave. In total, 153 Israeli soldiers have died in combat since the ground offensive began on October 27, surpassing the 119 deaths in the 2006 Lebanon war, according to official army data.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lamented: “The war is costing us a very high price, but we have no choice but to continue fighting” until the “destruction of Hamas”, because “it is the only way to free our kidnapped people “, although “it will take time” and “it comes at a very high price”. The Israeli army, which said it had destroyed the tunnel network in Gaza used for the October 7 attacks, said it had struck more than 200 Hamas “terrorist targets” in the past 24 hours and killed numerous militants in joint operations with the Shin Bet, the country’s internal intelligence service.
In Jabalya, the Israeli army spokesman announced, “a network of tunnels was discovered in which the bodies of five kidnappers were recovered”. “In recent weeks, the 551st Brigade of the 162nd Division has secured control of the Jabalya camp area, one of Hamas’ operational centers in the Gaza Strip,” it said in a statement. The operations also involved “fierce battles” during which “many terrorists were killed by soldiers” and hundreds of weapons were found, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said.
The bodies found correspond to those of three soldiers taken prisoner on October 7, Ziv Dado, Ron Sherman and Nick Beiser, as well as civilians Eden Zacharias and Elia Toledano. “As part of the operation, and following in-depth intelligence information, they discovered a network of strategic tunnels serving as Hamas headquarters in northern Gaza,” the army said. The Jabalya underground base included two levels: the first about ten meters deep and the second tens of meters deep. “The network of tunnels, with numerous routes, was used to direct the combat and movement of terrorists. Weapons, weapons manufacturing infrastructure and emergency hideouts were found in the depths of the military barracks,” he added. The network was connected to a well that led to the residence of the commander of Hamas’ Northern Brigade, Ahmad Andur, and also passed under a school and a hospital.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), called for an end to the “river of blood” and the “immense sacrifices” of the Palestinian people in a message for Christmas, a holiday that takes on particular relevance in Bethlehem, where the Christian tradition places the birth of Jesus. “The hardships and heroic resilience of our people in their land are the path to freedom and dignity,” said the president of the Palestinian National Authority, which governs small areas of the occupied West Bank.
Netanyahu’s wife writes to the Pope, intervene for hostages
Meanwhile, the wife of the Israeli prime minister, Sara Netanyahu, has written an official letter to Pope Francis asking for his help in efforts to free the hostages held in Gaza. “Hamas still holds 129 men, women and children hostage. Many of them are injured and sick. They are suffering from hunger and some are denied the basic medicines they need to survive. Your Holiness, I ask for your personal intervention in this matter Please use your influence to demand the unconditional release of all hostages without delay,” Sarah Netanyahu writes in the letter.
“Please also contact the Red Cross to ask them to visit all the hostages immediately and deliver vital medicines to them. For now the Red Cross has failed to insist on these objectives. Your intervention could shift the needle and save precious lives”, he writes again.
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