The Israeli military on Monday bombed Khan Yunis, the newest epicenter of the conflict in Gaza, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected what he stated had been Hamas circumstances for the discharge of hostages, even underneath rising strain from their households.
Witnesses reported lethal assaults in Khan Yunis, the biggest metropolis in southern Gaza, and heavy combating between Israeli troopers and Hamas militants.
The Well being Ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported on Monday that greater than 120 individuals had been killed prior to now 24 hours.
“The artillery shelling has not stopped since 5 a.m.,” stated Yunis Abdel Razek, 52, who sheltered along with his household on the metropolis’s Al-Aqsa College.
“We won’t depart the college… it is harmful and I worry for the little ones,” he stated. “They stated the Al-Mawasi space was protected, however they lied,” he added, referring to a coastal strip west of Khan Yunis.
Mahdi Antar, 21, in the meantime, stated he feared troops would “storm” Al-Nasr hospital, the place he was sheltering along with his household.
Whereas the combating has been concentrated within the south, it has not ended within the north, the place Hamas authorities reported shelling within the Gaza Metropolis space and witnesses heard explosions.
The assaults got here after Hamas launched a 16-page report on Sunday admitting “some errors” however defending the October 7 assaults that sparked the conflict.
The assaults resulted within the deaths of about 1,140 individuals, largely civilians, in accordance with an AFP depend primarily based on official Israeli figures.
In response, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a brutal offensive that has killed at the least 25,295 individuals in Gaza, largely ladies and kids, in accordance with the newest figures launched by the Well being Ministry on Monday.
– ‘Vital step’ –
Hamas, in its first public report on the occasions that triggered the conflict, stated that if civilians had been focused “it occurred by chance,” and known as for an finish to “Israeli aggression” in Gaza.
The October 7 assaults had been a “essential step” towards the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and a strategy to safe the discharge of Palestinian prisoners, the report stated in English and Arabic.
U.S. intelligence companies have estimated that Israel’s marketing campaign has killed “about 20 to 30 p.c” of Hamas fighters and continues to be removed from its objective of destroying the Islamist motion, the Wall Road Journal reported Sunday.
In a video assertion issued after the Hamas report, Netanyahu stated that “in return for the discharge of our hostages, Hamas calls for an finish to the conflict, the withdrawal of our troops from Gaza,” the discharge of Palestinian prisoners and the assure that Hamas would do. stay in energy.
“If we settle for this, our troopers have fallen in useless,” and safety wouldn’t be assured, Netanyahu stated.
US Center East coordinator Brett McGurk was anticipated to satisfy high officers in Cairo on Monday, adopted by a visit to Qatar, in a bid to dealer a brand new hostage deal, US media stated.
– ‘Unacceptable’ –
Netanyahu is underneath intense strain to safe the return of the prisoners and guarantee accountability for safety failures surrounding the October 7 assaults.
Hamas militants have seized about 250 hostages and Israel says about 132 stay in besieged Gaza, together with the our bodies of at the least 28 useless hostages, in accordance with an AFP depend primarily based on Israeli knowledge.
Family and supporters of the hostages gathered once more on Sunday night close to Netanyahu’s residence in Jerusalem.
“We ask our authorities to pay attention, to sit down on the negotiating desk and resolve whether or not to just accept this settlement or one other settlement that fits Israel,” stated Gilad Korenbloom, whose son is being held hostage in Gaza.
The European Union’s 27 international ministers are anticipated to carry separate talks with their Israeli and Palestinian counterparts in Brussels on Monday.
Forward of the talks, EU international coverage chief Josep Borrell instructed Israel it couldn’t construct peace “by means of army means alone”, calling Netanyahu’s rejection of a two-state resolution involving Palestinian sovereignty as “unacceptable” described.
– Humanitarian disaster –
UN companies have warned of famine and illness as Gazans, at the least 1.7 million of whom have been displaced, battle with shortages of water, medical care and different necessities amid day by day bombardments.
Abdelrahman Iyad, injured in Gaza and now being handled aboard the French helicopter provider Dixmude docked in Egypt, stated he didn’t have time to depart his house earlier than it was hit.
“I used to be with my mother and father, my brother, my sister, my second sister and her husband and their daughter. All of them died. I’m the one survivor,” he stated.
Rising tensions and violence within the Center East – involving Iranian-backed teams in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen – have fueled fears of a wider conflagration.
Sirens had been heard in a single day in northern Israel close to the border with Lebanon, the Israeli army stated, the place gun battles happened nearly day by day between Israeli forces and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah motion.
A number of areas in southern Lebanon had been hit in a single day, killing one Hezbollah fighter, a supply within the Hamas-affiliated group stated.
