In Israel, at least 13 people were injured in a “suspected car attack” in Raanana (center), Israeli police announced in a statement on Monday. The suspect, a Palestinian from Hebron in the occupied West Bank, was arrested, according to this source. He stole a car before hitting passers-by in this Tel Aviv suburb, leaving 13 injured, including a woman in critical condition, according to police and emergency services.
Shortly before, Palestinian Hamas announced a death toll of 24,100 in Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip, on the 101st day of a war which caused shock waves in the region.
Information to follow:
- More than 60 Palestinians killed in “intense” Israeli shelling overnight from Sunday to Monday
- In Israel, in the city of Raanana, a car-ramming attack left one dead and at least 13 injured
- The war between Israel and Hamas has passed the 100-day mark
- Hamas released a video showing three Israeli hostages alive, without giving any indication of the date on which it was filmed
- UN requests access to Israeli port of Ashdod to deliver aid to Gaza
- Hamas announces death of two Israeli hostages in new video
The war reaches the 100-day milestone
The war between Israel and Hamas passed the 100-day mark on Sunday, with more civilians killed in Gaza and relatives of Israeli hostages still in anguish over their fate. The Israeli army again bombarded the Gaza Strip on Sunday, whose population is experiencing a major humanitarian crisis, while the continuation of the conflict exacerbates regional tensions.
Israelis expressed solidarity on Sunday with the hostages held in the Palestinian territory by Hamas and its allies to mark 100 days of their detention and support the mobilization of their families. But the spokesperson for the military branch of Hamas, Abou Obeida, affirmed in the evening that many of the hostages were “probably killed recently”, the others being “in great danger”, which he rejected as “completely responsibility” on Israel.
Hamas’ military wing then released a video showing three living Israeli hostages, two men and a woman. This video gives no indication of when it was filmed. The three hostages ask the Israeli authorities in Hebrew to act for their release. The return of the hostages is one of the objectives of the war waged by Israel after the unprecedented attack by Hamas on its soil on October 7, which left around 1,140 dead, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count from Israeli assessment.
Some 250 people were taken hostage during this attack, and 132 are still in Gaza, of whom at least 25 were killed, according to Israeli authorities. About a hundred were released under a truce at the end of November. In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it classifies as a terrorist group like the United States and the European Union. In the Gaza Strip, the conflict has left more than 24,000 dead, mainly women and minors, according to the latest Hamas report.
“We are not abandoning anyone”, assures the Israeli Prime Minister
Hundreds of thousands of Israelis observed a 100-minute strike in the morning, as many as the days of detention of the hostages, announced the major trade union center Histadrut. In rainy Tel Aviv, hundreds of people took part in a series of events, including a concert by Artifex, the last DJ to play at the Tribe of Nova festival – 364 of whose attendees were killed by the Hamas according to Israeli figures. “A hundred days and they are still abandoned there… A hundred days and there is no sign of returning,” Amit Zach, a graphic designer, laments in the crowd.
Bashir al-Zayadna, 27, whose uncle and cousin, Youssef and Hamza al-Zayadna, 53 and 22, are hostages, says he only hopes for one thing: to be able to hug them and “tell them that all is finished”. “We are not abandoning anyone. We are doing everything to bring them all home,” assured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhyahu on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting.
The “hardest” war
According to Hamas, more than 100 people were killed in nightly Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip, particularly in Khan Younes. The Israeli army says it is now focusing its operations on this town, in the south of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting are massed. She announced the death of a soldier on Sunday, bringing to 188 the number of soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in Gaza on October 27.
In the besieged territory, the 2.4 million inhabitants lack everything: food, medicine and fuel. The UN estimates that 1.9 million people have had to leave their homes. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Liga Jabr, a teenager in 1948, says she remembers the “Nakba”, the “catastrophe” that was for the Palestinians the displacement and expulsion of around 760,000 of them. them from their lands to the creation of the State of Israel.
But “this war is harder than all the displacements” of the population she has experienced, she told AFP. A 28-year-old Palestinian video journalist from the Arab television channel Al-Ghad, based in Cairo, was killed on Sunday “in the north of Gaza”, the media also announced, attributing his death to an Israeli strike.
UN requests access to Israeli port of Ashdod to deliver aid to Gaza
Three United Nations agencies on Monday asked Israel to allow access to its port of Ashdod to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip where Palestinians suffer from significant food insecurity. Access to this port “is absolutely necessary for humanitarian agencies”, stressed officials from the World Food Program (WFP), UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) in a joint statement.
Access to the port of Ashdod, located about 40 km north of the Gaza Strip, “would allow much larger quantities of aid to be transported and then trucked directly to the northern areas of Gaza , hard hit, which few convoys have managed to reach”, estimate the three agencies.
Regional tensions
The conflict also fuels regional violence with armed groups supporting Hamas. The Israeli army announced that it had killed three armed men infiltrated on its territory on Sunday, in the border region with Lebanon, where two Israeli civilians, a mother and her son, also died in a missile attack from the neighboring country. The pro-Iranian Lebanese Hezbollah said it had carried out six attacks on Israeli soil, including one on the village of the two victims. Exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been daily since October 7.
The leader of the powerful Lebanese Islamist movement, Hassan Nasrallah, said on Sunday that Israel had “won no real victory or semblance of victory” in Gaza. Tensions have also increased in the Red Sea where Yemeni Houthi rebels supported by Iran are attacking ships believed to be linked to Israel, in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza. The United States and the United Kingdom carried out strikes against Houthi sites on Friday and Saturday in response.
Houthi media reported new Anglo-American strikes on Hodeida (west) on Sunday evening, but Washington immediately denied this. In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army reported the arrest, for “incitement to terrorism”, of two sisters of Hamas number two Saleh al-Arouri, killed on January 2 in Lebanon in a drone attack attributed to Israeli army.
Five Palestinians died there on Sunday after incidents and clashes with the Israeli army, including a 16-year-old boy killed near Jericho, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said. Israeli forces, for their part, indicated that they had “neutralized two terrorists” near Hebron and “two attackers” who had thrown an explosive at a military base near Ramallah.