Israeli forces dismantle Hamas’ ‘military framework’ in northern Gaza
The Israeli army will continue its operations against Hamas in the Gaza Strip until it attains its goals, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says.
“The war must not be stopped until we achieve all the goals: the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday.
“I say this to both our enemies and our friends.”
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About 1200 people were killed and 240 were taken hostage on October 7, according to Israeli officials.
More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held by Hamas.
For Israelis, the deadliest day in the country’s history and the accounts of atrocities that later emerged left a sense that the country’s survival was at stake.
Israel’s offensive has so far killed 22,835 Palestinians in Gaza, after 111 dead and 250 wounded were added to the tally over the past 24 hours, Palestinian health officials said on Sunday.
An Israeli air strike on a car near Rafah in southern Gaza on Sunday killed two Palestinian journalists who were out reporting, according to health officials in Gaza and the journalists’ union there.
Visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met King Abdullah in Jordan on Sunday, stressing “US opposition to forcible displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza and the critical need to protect Palestinian civilians in the West Bank from extremist settler violence,” US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement.
The fighting has displaced most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population, with many homes and civilian infrastructure left in ruins amid acute shortages of food, water and medicine.
“We hope that… Blinken looks at us with an eye of mercy, ends the war, ends the misery we are living in,” Um Mohamad Al-Arqan said, as she stood by the tent where she is living.
Blinken, who visited Turkey and Greece at the start of his trip, is due in Doha next, where he will discuss with Qatari leaders efforts to free hostages still believed to be held by Hamas after an earlier agreement mediated by Qatar broke down, a US State Department official said.
Blinken will also aim to press hesitant Muslim countries in the Middle East to prepare to play a role in the reconstruction, governance and security of the Gaza Strip if and when Israel manages to eliminate Hamas, a US official said.
Summing up the offensive on Saturday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces had dismantled Hamas’ “military framework” in northern Gaza, killing about 8000 militants there.
“We are now focused on dismantling Hamas in the centre of and south of the (Gaza) strip,” he told an online briefing.
Palestinian health ministry figures do not differentiate between fighter and civilian casualties but it has said that 70 per cent of Gaza’s dead are women and people under 18.
Gun battles intensified in the southern Gaza town of Khan Younis as well as in central districts of the densely populated Palestinian enclave.
Smoke rose from the sites of Israeli bombing early on Sunday east and north of Khan Younis.
Israeli strikes on houses in the city killed 50 people, health officials in Nasser Hospital said on Sunday.
Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip killed gunmen loading weapons into a vehicle and dismantled a launch site that fired rockets towards Israel, the Israeli military said.
Hamas’ armed wing said its fighters destroyed a troop carrier in al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Outside Gaza, there was more violence in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli aircraft fired on Palestinian militants who had attacked troops in the area, the military said, and Palestinian health officials said seven Palestinians died in the strike.
An Israeli border police officer was killed and others wounded when their vehicle was hit by an explosive device during operations in the West Bank city of Jenin, the military and police said.
