As fierce fighting continues between the Israeli army and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu This Saturday, he assured that the war “will continue for several more months,” while continuing to withhold details of how to free the hostages still held captive in the Gaza Strip and without specifying what Israel’s post-war plan is.
“We will continue until victory, to achieve such a victory and our goals we need time,” the prime minister said at a press conference, at which he stressed that Israel will continue “their merciless bombardment to defeatHamas is on the 85th day of a war that appears to have no imminent end or clear exit.
The troops are “fighting all over Gaza” and “underground” and so far “they have killed more than 8,000 Hamas members,” Netanyahu said. As he reiterated, his other priority is the release of some 129 hostages (more than a hundred are believed to be alive and another 22 dead) in the Gaza Strip, while contacts brokered by Egypt or Qatar for one or another would include a truce, but so far they are not bearing fruit.
With this in mind, Netanyahu – in the dark hours following the fiasco of not foreseeing the October 7 Hamas surprise attack that left more than 1,200 people dead in Israel – He asked the population for “patience” faced the issue of prisoners and the continuation of the war. More than 2,200 soldiers have already been injured as a result, and 170 Israeli soldiers have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the launch of the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on October 27.
On Saturday afternoon, another large mobilization took place in central Tel Aviv asking the government great efforts to free the hostages. “Take the hostages back to Gaza as soon as possible,” demanded thousands of people, including relatives of the captives, who stage weekly demonstrations and are increasingly looking forward to the return of their loved ones.
In addition to Tel Aviv, protests took place in other parts of Israel, where protesters, in turn, demanded Netanyahu’s resignation.
Intense fighting and attacks by Israeli troops continued this Saturday. in the area of the southern city of Khan Younis, where large numbers of soldiers are expanding army operations and said they have killed dozens of militiamen in the past few hours.
Among other things, the army carried out a raid against what it believes to be the head of Hamas’ military intelligence in Khan Yunis. “and they stormed the headquarters” Islamist group in the city center.
Israel has not yet proposed clear scenarios for the “day after tomorrow” in the Gaza Strip, but it appears that it is not yet close to achieving its main goal. remove Hamas from the Gaza Stripwhere militias continue to attack and ambush Israeli troops.
Until now, Netanyahu insists Israel will retain control of Gaza “for an indefinite period”, but did not specify who and how would govern the enclave after the end of the current offensive.
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For now, tents to house some of Gaza’s 1.9 million internally displaced people are scattered in the southern Rafah area, where many of them are concentrated, while The Gaza government estimates that about 800,000 people live here. in the north of the enclave and without access to medical care, and hospitals are almost completely out of order.
In an area full of shops, the Egyptian Red Crescent create a camp to house thousands of displaced people in the Maasawi region of Khan Yunis, a pattern that could become increasingly widespread across the sector in the future as destruction continues to mount.
An estimated 70% of buildings and houses in Gaza were destroyed or damagedThe devastation adds to the estimated 7,000 people believed killed in the rubble, in addition to the more than 21,600 confirmed Palestinian dead, about 75% of whom are children, women and the elderly.
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The number of wounded now exceeds 56,100. since the beginning of the war. According to the Ministry of Health, there are about 5,300 wounded or sick people who need to be evacuated abroad “to save their lives”, but Egypt has so far treated only 1% of the total number of wounded in the sector.
There is also great concern about the spread of infectious diseases in the Gaza Strip. A quarter of its population – of 2.3 million people – may die within a year from infectious outbreaks linked to the humanitarian crisis caused by the conflict, he said this Saturday in a British newspaper The keeper Devi Sridhar is Professor of Global Public Health at the University of Edinburgh. (EFE)