Invasion rehearsals in Gaza while Hamas flies to Moscow. In a “targeted” blitz conducted when it was still night, the Israeli army – for the first time since the beginning of the war – crossed the border with tanks and soldiers, entering the north of the Strip and then returning back. The incursions will continue “with greater intensity” also in the next few days, the military said, and seem to be the prelude to the larger ground operation that Israel confirmed today that it intends to carry out despite the pressure to the contrary and without having any certainty, at the moment , of the fate of the 224 hostages.
Israel, the audio testimony: “Hamas prevents the inhabitants of Gaza from moving by blocking the roads and shooting”
Israeli and foreign sources reported a “positive” moment in the negotiations mediated by Qatar and Egypt, which could lead to the release “within two days”. But it is not known whether the dossier under discussion refers to the 138 prisoners with foreign passports or to all of them, as Israel requests.
The families of the kidnapped – exhausted by three weeks of tension for their loved ones – gathered in Tel Aviv this evening to ask to be received by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. While Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the al Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced – without providing evidence – that at least 50 of the hostages died as a result of Israel’s raids.
The new actions taken by the army are different from previous Israeli commando raids. This time, the military spokesperson explained, “numerous terrorists, terrorist infrastructures and anti-tank missile launch sites” were located and hit. And work was done “to prepare the battlefield”, or “for the next phase of the war”. The entry into Gaza, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reiterated, “will take place as soon as the appropriate conditions are created”.
Gaza, the buildings of the Khan Younis refugee camp were bombed: the images shortly after the explosions
On the diplomatic front, things were complicated even more by the visit to Moscow of the Hamas representative, Abu Marzuk, as announced by the Russian Foreign Ministry itself. Among other things, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani was also in the Russian capital. Abu Marzuk – who did not meet President Putin, at least according to the Kremlin – would have discussed «the immediate release of foreign hostages in the Gaza Strip and issues relating to guarantees on the evacuation of Russian citizens and other citizens foreigners from the territory of the Palestinian enclave.
Russia’s immutable position in favor of the implementation of the well-known decisions of the international community was then confirmed – Moscow said -. That is, the creation of a Palestinian state. Israel attacked the Russian decision to host Hamas which “legitimizes the horrors” and ordered Moscow to “drive out the terrorists”.
While the UN headquarters in New York was the scene of yet another standoff over the war. In the opening session of the General Assembly, President Dennis Francis condemned Hamas’s murderous assault on the border kibbutzim last October 7 but also Israel’s increasingly intense raids on the Palestinian enclave. Position rejected by the ambassador of the Jewish State Gilad Erdan, according to whom the draft resolution presented by Jordan which is under discussion “is ridiculous” because it does not even mention Hamas. “Should hospitals and civilians – he denounced while embassy officials provided the delegates with horror videos of the attack on the kibbutzim – be protected only if they are not Israeli?”.
Palestinian representative Ryad Mansour called instead to “stop the bombs” and to “save the lives of the 2.3 million civilians in Gaza, the lives of children, 3,000 of whom have been killed by Israel in the last three weeks.” In Gaza – where today another 12 trucks of humanitarian aid entered from the Rafah crossing but no petrol – the deaths have reached over seven thousand. Hamas also published their names after US President Joe Biden said yesterday that he did not trust the budgets provided by the authorities controlled by the Palestinian faction.
Another Israeli attack in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, left 22 dead. The Jewish state has claimed responsibility for over 250 attacks against Hamas targets in the last 24 hours: some rocket launch stations, the army denounced, had been set up by militiamen near a mosque and a nursery school. The raids are increasingly targeting Hamas high command. Those eliminated today were the commander responsible for launching rockets in the Kahn Younis area, Hassan Al-Abdullah, and the faction’s deputy head of intelligence, Shadi Barud, considered the right-hand man of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and among the responsible for planning the October 7 attack. The rain of rockets continued today in Israel in the south and center, with Tel Aviv also in the crosshairs.
To know more
– Gaza, testimonies: “Here you risk death under bombs even queuing to buy bread”
– From Yossi to Ruth to Ofir, those dull smiles of the children taken hostage by Hamas
– “There is no hierarchy of human life”
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