LAST UPDATE | 2 Jan
ISRAELI FORCES CONTINUED to battle Hamas militants amid the ruins of the heavily-bombed Gaza Strip today as the war raging for almost three months piled new miseries on Palestinians in the besieged territory.
The Israeli army said soldiers had killed “dozens of terrorists”, including some carrying explosives, raided a weapons storage compound in the southern city of Khan Yunis and discovered long-range rocket launchers and tunnels.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry said 70 people were killed and more than 100 wounded in the past 24 hours during Israeli raids.
In Khan Yunis, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said Israel twice struck its headquarters, resulting in “five casualties and three injuries” among displaced people who had sought refuge there and at a nearby hospital.
“They told us to go to the south that is safe, but they are liars,” shouted Fathi al-Af, pointing to his daughter on a stretcher on the floor of Nasser Hospital after the Red Crescent strike.
“The entire Gaza Strip is not safe.”
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) denounced the alleged strikes, saying they “severely damaged” a Red Crescent training centre within the Al-Amal hospital.
“Today’s bombardments are unconscionable. Gaza’s health system is already on its knees, with health and aid workers continuously stymied in their efforts to save lives due to the hostilities,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
UN agencies have voiced alarm over Gaza’s spiralling humanitarian crisis as around two million people live under siege and bombardment, most of them displaced and many huddling in shelters and tents amid dire food shortages.
“Living conditions… are just hopeless,” said Mostafa Shennar, 43, who fled Gaza City, now a largely devastated urban combat zone, and has been living in the crowded southern border town of Rafah.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and warned the war may continue “throughout 2024″ as efforts toward a ceasefire have so far yielded no results.
The war broke out when Gaza’s rulers Hamas launched an attack on Israel on 7 October which resulted in around 1,140 deaths in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The Islamist militant group also took around 250 hostages, more than half of whom remain in captivity, according to Israeli figures.
Israel, after suffering the worst attack in its history, has launched a withering offensive that has killed at least 22,185 people, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
Genocide claim
Meanwhile, Israeli officials today confirmed that the country will defend itself before the United Nation’s top court against charges that it has engaged in genocide of Palestinians in Gaza – a rare engagement with the world body, which Israel often denounces as biased against it.
South Africa launched the case on Friday at the International Court of Justice at The Hague, Netherlands, saying the magnitude of death, destruction and humanitarian crisis in Gaza from the Israeli military campaign against Hamas meets the threshold of genocide under international law.
South Africa asked the court to order Israel to halt its attacks in Gaza. Israel dismisses international cases against it as unfair and biased and rarely cooperates.
Its decision to respond to the charge signals that the government is concerned about the potential damage to its reputation.
Eylon Levy, an official in the Israeli prime minister’s office, on Tuesday accused South Africa of “giving political and legal cover” to the 7 October attack by Hamas that triggered Israel’s campaign.
“The state of Israel will appear before the International Court of Justice at the Hague to dispel South Africa’s absurd blood libel,” he said.
Army probes prisoner death
The Israeli army said 173 of its soldiers have been killed inside Gaza in the battle against Hamas, which is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States.
The military said today it was investigating a soldier suspected of shooting dead a Palestinian captured in the Gaza Strip.
“The terrorist was handed over to the supervision of a soldier, who, under suspicion, allegedly shot him, resulting in his death,” the army said of Sunday’s incident.
Throughout its bloodiest ever Gaza war, Israel has had the backing of its key ally the United States, which has however also urged greater restraint to spare civilian lives.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which includes far-right and hardline nationalist groups, has said repeatedly it will keep fighting until Hamas is destroyed.
As 2024 started, a long-running political dispute flared again after setting off mass street protests last year against what is considered the most right-wing government in Israeli history.
The Supreme Court overruled a key plank of a judicial reform package that Netanyahu has defended as rebalancing the powers of politicians and judges, but which protesters have labelled a threat to Israel’s liberal democracy.
The setback on the so-called reasonableness clause dealt a political blow to the wartime government already under fire over the intelligence failure leading up to 7 October.
Some reservists to go home
The army said on Monday it would soon rotate out some of the more than 300,000 reservists called up after 7 October, in part to prepare them for many more months of war ahead.
It said reservists from two brigades, which have some 4,000 troops each, will start returning home this week.
Defence Minister Yoav Gallant also said some residents “will soon be able to return home” to towns and villages near Gaza that were attacked by Hamas and then evacuated.
The government has so far refused to specify its plans for post-war Gaza and how it will be rebuilt and governed.
US news outlet Axios, citing unnamed Israeli sources, said Hamas had presented Israel with a proposal on Sunday for a new hostage exchange deal via Qatari and Egyptian mediators.
The official told Axios the proposal had been deemed unacceptable by the Israeli war cabinet, but suggested progress could be made towards a more amenable plan in future.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh today said that hostages abducted from Israel will only be freed from Gaza under conditions set by the militant group.
“The enemy’s prisoners will only be released on terms set by the resistance,” Haniyeh said in a televised address.
Turkey arrests ‘Mossad suspects’
Violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank, where at least 321 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops and settlers since the Gaza war began, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry.
In the latest clash today, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians, the ministry said. The army said it had shot dead four militants in a “counter-terrorism” operation.
Separately, troops “neutralised” a Palestinian militant who fired at them in the town of Qalqilya, the army said without elaborating.
Recent months have also seen almost daily exchanges of fire on the border with Lebanon between the army and Iran-backed groups, particularly Hezbollah.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have also launched attacks at Israel and at cargo ships in the Red Sea, where the US military has assembled a multinational taskforce to protect the vital shipping lane.
The Pentagon said on Monday it would withdraw the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford which has been deployed near Lebanon since shortly after the outbreak of the war.
But it vowed to “retain extensive capability” in the wider region, including the carrier USS Dwight D Eisenhower, “to deter any state or non-state actor from escalating this crisis beyond Gaza”.
Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has harshly criticised Netanyahu over the war, announced the detention of 33 people suspected of working for Israel’s Mossad intelligence service.
Erdogan weeks ago warned of “serious consequences” should Israel attempt to target Hamas figures living or working in Turkey.
“There is an insidious operation and sabotage attempts being made against Turkey and its interests,” Erdogan said, warning that “we will definitely destroy this game”.
- © AFP 2024 with additional reporting from Press Association
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