An Israeli flag flies next to the rubble of destroyed buildings as smoke rises in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, as seen from southern Israel, December 26, 2023.
Defying international demands for a ceasefire, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to continue fighting in Gaza until Hamas is destroyed out of fear that the conflict will escalate and involve forces affiliated with the United States and Iran attacking one another.
After touring Israeli forces in northern Gaza on Monday, Netanyahu warned Likud Party legislators that the war was far from ended and denied media reports that his administration could declare a ceasefire.
He warned that without using military force, Israel would not be able to liberate the last of its captives that were being held by Hamas.
We are not going to stop. The war will rage on until it’s over and we win, no less
Netanyahu
Netanyahu restated the three requirements for peace in an opinion piece published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday: the elimination of Hamas, the demilitarization of Gaza, and the deradicalization of Palestinian society.
Israel has been under pressure from its closest ally, the United States, to decrease civilian casualties and move operations in Gaza to a lower-intensity phase as retaliation for Hamas’ deadly cross-border incursion on October 7.
Authorities in Gaza, which is administered by Hamas, report that nearly 20,700 Gazans have died, including 250 in the past 24 hours.
Because Washington supports Israel in its conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, militants backed by Iran have attacked U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Syria.
The U.S. military launched retaliatory airstrikes in Iraq on Monday in the latest tit-for-tat conflict, following a drone attack on an American outpost in Erbil by militants affiliated with Iran that left one service member critically injured and two other U.S. soldiers wounded, according to officials.
A number of Hezbollah militants were killed and various organization sites were damaged by the airstrikes
The US military
Hezbollah is closely associated with Islamic Jihad, another Iranian-backed Palestinian organization, and Hamas.
“These strikes are meant to weaken the ability of those elements to carry out further attacks on coalition forces in Iraq and Syria and to hold them accountable.” The head of U.S. Central Command, General Michael Erik Kurilla, declared, “We will always protect our forces.”
Since the Israel-Hamas battle started in October, the U.S. military has been attacked in Iraq and Syria at least 100 times, most often by a combination of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.
For weeks, Washington has exerted pressure on Israel to designate safe zones and open humanitarian corridors for refugees to flee in order to minimize injury to civilians. However, more people are dying, and Israeli military action has been more intense.
As a U.N. team leader stationed in Gaza for a few weeks, Gemma Connell described what she saw as a “human chess board” where thousands of previously displaced Palestinians are once again on the run with little assurance that their destination will be secure.
The Deir al-Balah area in central Gaza was visited by Connell on Monday.
There’s so little space left here in Rafah that people just don’t know where they will go and it really feels like people being moved around a human chessboard because there’s an evacuation order somewhere
Connel
“People go from that location to another. However, she warned that they are not secure there.
According to an Israeli military spokesman, the army takes all reasonable measures to prevent harm to civilians, but Hamas disputes the claim that Palestinian militants utilize civilians as human shields.
More Israeli Air strikes
Palestinian locals at Khan Younis, the main hospital in the southern Gaza Strip, reported multiple airstrikes early on Tuesday.
According to Palestinian health sources, an Israeli airstrike on a residence in Khan Younis’ Al-Amal neighborhood claimed the lives of seven people.
On Sunday night, one of the deadliest nights in the 11-week-old conflict between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians mourned the deaths of over 100 people, according to Gaza health officials, as a result of Israeli bombings.
Palestinian mourners in a queue caressed the white shrouds covering the bodies of at least seventy persons who, according to Palestinian health officials, were killed by an airstrike that struck Maghazi in the middle of the strip during a burial in Gaza.
In a strongly worded statement, Pope Francis declared that children lost to violence, like the one in Gaza, were the “little Jesuses of today.” He claimed that the “appalling harvest” of innocent victims was being reaped by Israeli strikes.
Diplomatic efforts, meanwhile, did not provide much comfort.
Two Egyptian security sources revealed on Monday that Hamas and the affiliated Islamic Jihad have rejected an Egyptian proposal asking them to cede control of the Gaza Strip in exchange for an ongoing ceasefire. According to the sources, the factions declined to make any compromises other than the potential release of other hostages.
Sworn to destroy Israel, Hamas and its smaller militant associate Islamic Jihad are said to be holding over 100 captives out of the 240 they took during their Oct. 7 rampage through Israeli cities, which resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people.
Israel has largely wasted the tiny strip ever since. The United Nations reports that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is dire, with the great majority of its 2.3 million residents having been forced from their homes.
