The Israeli army has firmly entrenched itself with tanks and troops in Khan Yunis, a key Hamas city in the south of the Strip, widening the offensive. At the same time it took control of two other strongholds of the Islamic faction in Jabalya, in the north, and Shuyaia, east of Gaza City, in the center of the Palestinian enclave. Since the end of the pauses last week, the fighting (82 soldiers killed to date) has intensified in the south, while the UN Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths has raised the alarm about a situation that has now become “apocalyptic”. . Where, he denounced, civilians are forced to make “one impossible choice after another” in a territory where “no place is safe” and “no one is safe”.
A hell that also affects the Israeli hostages, who according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “will be difficult to bring home”. The first Israeli tanks were seen yesterday morning in the center of Khan Yunis, where, among other things, the head of Hamas in the Strip, Yahya Sinwar, is believed to be hiding. Then they blocked the road that connects the city to Rafah, close to the border with Egypt. The commander of Israel’s Southern Front, General Yaron Finkelman, explained that we are “in the midst of the most intense days since the start of the ground operation in terms of terrorists killed, firefights and use of ground firepower and aerial. We intend to continue to strike and achieve our results.” In the Jabalya stronghold, Israeli troops raided the Hamas internal security command center and found “weapons and maps”. Then they destroyed positions of the Nukhba, the elite unit responsible for the attack on the kibbutzim on October 7th.
“We have moved towards the third phase of the ground operation – summarized the chief of staff Herzi Halevi – and we have secured many Hamas strongholds in the north of Gaza. Now we are operating against its strongholds in the south”. The strategy is to increasingly fragment Hamas’s territorial continuity in the Strip, isolating the militiamen. But obviously civilians are also the ones who pay the price for this. UNRWA – the UN agency for Palestinian refugees which has reported the deaths of 130 of its employees in the Strip since the start of the conflict – said that more than one million displaced Palestinians are expected to arrive in Rafah.
“The conditions necessary to bring aid to the population of Gaza do not exist. If possible – urged the UN humanitarian coordinator, Lynn Hastings – an even more hellish scenario is about to unfold, in which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond “. The head of the Shuhada al Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah (in the center of the Strip) Eyad Al-Jabri said that in the last few hours the facility has received “45 people killed by an Israeli bombing on the homes of three families” in the city. The deaths in Gaza, according to the Hamas-led health ministry, have now exceeded 16,000 (16,248). There remains the issue of the approximately 138 Israeli hostages whose fate becomes more and more complicated with each passing day.
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Israel revokes visa for UN humanitarian coordinator
“I have decided to revoke the residence visa in Israel of the UN ‘humanitarian’ coordinator Lynn Hastings.” Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen reports it on X. «Someone who did not condemn Hamas for the brutal massacre of 1,200 Israelis, for the abduction of children and elderly people and for horrific acts of abuse and rape, and for using Gazans as human shields, but instead condemns Israel, a democratic country, a country that protects its citizens, cannot serve in the United Nations and cannot enter Israel”, underlines Cohen, adding that “we will no longer remain silent in the face of the prejudices of the UN”.
US sources, “The current operation in Gaza will end in January, then Israel will move on to a hyperlocalized strategy against Hamas”
The current ground operation in Gaza “will last several weeks” and then “by January” Israel will move to a “low intensity and hyperlocalized” strategy targeting Hamas militants and leaders. Senior White House officials reported this to CNN.
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