Gaza, two journalists dead. Blinken fears the conflict will spread to Lebanon
There war in the Middle East reaches day 93. At least 16 people have died in new Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip. The army of the Jewish state announces that it has “completed the dismantling” of Hamas' military capabilities in northern Gaza and that it has killed the battalion commander Nuseirat, Ismail Siraj, and his deputy, Ahmed Wahaba, responsible for the October 7 massacre in Kibbutz Be'eri and other border communities. The army: “8 thousand terrorists killed so far.” Meanwhile, the Gaza Strip is exhausted and, according to the UN, “famine is around the corner”. Blinken meanwhile, after the Amman stop, which also included a visit to a World Food Program center in the Jordanian capital, is about to fly to Doha, Qatar, and then tonight it will be in the Emirates, in Abu Dhabi for further talks with Arab allies. Tomorrow he will be in Israel and then it will be Egypt's turn.
Hamas updates the toll, 22,835 dead in the Gaza Strip
The Hamas Ministry of Health has updated the death toll from the conflict in the Gaza Strip: at least 22,835 deaths overall, of which 113 in the last 24 hours. The number of wounded amounts to 58,416 since the beginning of the war.
Media: 2 journalists killed in Israeli raid in Khan Yunis
Two journalists were killed in an Israeli raid in Khan Yunis, Wafa news agency reports. The victims were named Mustafa Abu Thraya and Hamza Dahdouh. The latter was the son of a well-known Al Jazeera journalist, Wael Al-Dahdouh, whose story went around the world: he learned, while he was in a hospital filming a report on Israeli attacks, the news that a raid had killed his wife and two other children.
Israel: “8,000 terrorists killed so far”
In exactly three months of war, Israel killed “around 8,000 Hamas terrorists”, according to the army. In the northern sector of the Strip, within an area densely populated by 1.2 million people, a military structure composed of 2 brigades including 12 battalions, with a total strength of 14 thousand men, was gradually dismantled. In total in the Gaza Strip the Israeli armed forces “have so far found and destroyed 30-40,000 weapons and other combat equipment kept in Hamas bunkers but also in schools, hospitals, mosques and houses”.
Israeli air raid on Jenin, West Bank: 6 dead
An Israeli airstrike killed six people in Jenin, West Bank. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the bombing hit a gathering of citizens in the city located in the north of Palestinian territory. Israel said the people killed were part of a group of Palestinian gunmen who were throwing explosives at troops engaged in a counter-terrorism operation in the West Bank.
Protests in Israel, calls for early elections
Anti-government protests have broken out in several locations across Israel, with demonstrators calling for early elections. The largest march descended on Habina Square, in Tel Aviv. Smaller demonstrations, in terms of number of participants, were also recorded in Haifa and in the northern coastal city of Caesarea, in front of the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel: Hamas military structure in northern Gaza dismantled
The Israeli army said it had “completed the dismantling” of Hamas' military capabilities in northern Gaza. “We will continue to deepen the findings, strengthen the barrier and defenses at the border,” the military spokesman said. Despite the defeat of Hamas in the north of the Strip, it is probable that sporadic rocket launches towards Israel will still be carried out from those areas.
Blinken's mission to the Middle East
To stem the Middle Eastern conflict, but above all to prevent the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, from seeing Lebanon, and the defeat of Hezbollah, as a solution to strengthen the ranks of a government divided and tested by three months of conflict. In the official agenda of the US Secretary of State's mission there is no mention of the Land of the Cedars, but of possible 'regional escalations' of the war. However, today the Washington Post is talking about it and, by attributing the information to 'private conversations', brings out the great fear of the United States, as Israel enters a third crucial phase against Hamas. Also supporting the thesis are the statements of Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz who defended the prime minister by stating that “the only consideration here is the security of Israel, nothing else. It is our duty towards the country and its citizens, everything the Government agrees with this.”
According to the American newspaper, however, talks between the US administration and Tel Aviv have already taken place, also on the basis of a secret assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) which, in a report, strongly advises the Jewish state against undertaking a initiative of this kind on Lebanon: the IDF would in fact find itself too spread out on the various fronts of the conflict and failure would be almost certain. Furthermore, according to the Washington Post, Hezbollah, a long-standing adversary of the United States with well-trained fighters and tens of thousands of missiles and rockets, would instead like to avoid a serious escalation. In a speech on Friday, the leader of the Nasrallah organization promised a response to Israeli aggression, but hinted that he might be open to negotiations on the demarcation of the border with Israel.
For Blinken it is now a question of being able to find the framework of a very complicated geopolitical situation. Yesterday the talks with Erdogan and the strong pressure for support for the ceasefire, today the talks with the King of Jordan, Abdullah II, who in turn invited the United States to put pressure on Tel Aviv to obtain a “stop to arms immediately” to avoid “catastrophic repercussions” of the continuation of hostilities.
However, the Secretary of State's good intentions are corroborated today by CNN rumors according to which Israel is entering a new phase of war in which the Israeli Defense Forces, IDF, are revising the “total destruction of Hamas” position in favor of instead of a 'weakening' of the power of the Islamist organization in the Strip. Meanwhile, after the Amman stop, which also included a visit to a World Food Program center in the Jordanian capital, Blinken is about to fly to Doha, Qatar, and then this evening he will be in the Emirates, in Abu Dhabi for further talks with allies Arabs. Tomorrow he will be in Israel and then it will be Egypt's turn.
“We want to make sure that like-minded countries use their ties, their influence, their relationships with some of the actors that might be involved to keep control of things, to ensure that the conflict doesn't spread,” said the US secretary yesterday in Greece. The war between Israel and Hamas, now in its fourth month, raises fears of a spillover with increased violence not only on the Israeli-Lebanese border, but also in Iraq, Syria and the Red Sea. According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have caused 22,800 deaths, mostly civilians. Regarding the reconstruction of Gaza and its governance, the topic will be at the center of discussions between the head of American diplomacy and his Arab partners. Turkey could play a particular role in this, and the US representative spoke about this yesterday with Erdogan.
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