Violent ground fighting, according to Hamas, is underway in the Gaza Strip, still subject to intensive bombardment by the Israeli army, and to a siege which according to the International Criminal Court can constitute “a crime”. “Preventing the delivery of aid may constitute a crime,” declared Sunday the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Karim Khan, after visiting the Rafah border post, linking Egypt to Gaza, where international aid for Palestinian civilians is piled up. “Israel must ensure without delay that civilians receive food and medicine,” added Karim Khan.
The Palestinian territory, bombarded relentlessly by the Israeli army in retaliation for the unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 in Israel, has also been subject since October 9 to a “complete siege” which deprives its population of water, food and electricity. Calls have increased in recent days to allow aid to flow to Gaza, already subject to an Israeli blockade since 2007 and Hamas came to power. The White House reported on Sunday a call from President Joe Biden to Benjamin Netanyahu in which he “stressed the need to immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian aid.”
The main information:
- Heavy ground fighting underway in Gaza, Hamas announces
- “Preventing the delivery of aid can constitute a crime,” says the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court
- 33 trucks loaded with humanitarian aid entered Gaza on Sunday
- Israel bombs positions in Syria after rocket fire
- Palestinian Hamas released a video on Monday of three women presented as hostages among those it holds in the Gaza Strip
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that the Israeli army was advancing “methodically” in the Gaza Strip
Israeli army announces release of soldier held hostage in Gaza
The Israeli army announced Monday that it had released a soldier held hostage by the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Israeli authorities said. During the night from Sunday to Monday “soldier Ori Megidish was released, during a ground operation, after being kidnapped by the terrorist organization Hamas on October 7”, indicated the internal security service and the Israeli army in a joint press release.
Gaza: the Israeli army is “progressing methodically”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that the Israeli army was advancing “methodically” in the Gaza Strip, on the 24th day of the war between Israel and Hamas. “The IDF has expanded its land entry into the Gaza Strip, it is doing so in measured and very powerful stages, progressing methodically step by step,” he said at the opening of the cabinet meeting.
Hamas releases video of three women presented as hostages
Palestinian Hamas released a video on Monday of three women presented as hostages among those it has held in the Gaza Strip since the bloody attack on an unprecedented scale perpetrated in Israel on October 7. In this 76-second video, broadcast by Hamas media with the title “a number of Zionist detainees send a message to (Benjamin) Netanyahu and his government”, the three women can be seen sitting on plastic chairs. One of them, seated in the middle, calls in an angry tone on the Israeli Prime Minister to conclude an exchange of prisoners with the Islamist movement to obtain their release.
Several Israeli media outlets published a screenshot of this video on their site, indicating that they would not broadcast it, judging that the comments made were dictated by Hamas. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday accused Hamas of “psychological manipulation” over the hostages it is holding after the Islamist movement said it was ready to release them in exchange for all Palestinian prisoners incarcerated by Israel.
According to the latest assessment by the Israeli authorities, at least 239 hostages kidnapped by Hamas commandos during the attack on Israeli soil on October 7 are being held in the Gaza Strip. This attack on an unprecedented scale triggered a war which has already left thousands dead. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday described as “cruel psychological propaganda” the video that Palestinian Hamas released of three women presented as hostages held since the bloody attack perpetrated in Israel on October 7. “I turn to Yelena Trupanov, Danielle Aloni and Rimon Kirsht who were kidnapped by Hamas which commits war crimes (…). Our hearts are with you and with all the other people kidnapped,” he said. he added in a statement.
Israel says it struck “more than 600 targets” in 24 hours
The Israeli army claimed Monday to have struck “more than 600” targets in the Gaza Strip in the last 24 hours, according to information provided to AFP. Among the targets, an army press release lists: “weapons depots, dozens of anti-tank missile launch positions, as well as caches (…) used by the Hamas terrorist organization.”
Israeli tanks on the edge of Gaza city, main road axis cut
Israeli tanks entered a neighborhood on the edge of Gaza City on Monday, cutting off the main road between the north and south of the Gaza Strip, witnesses said. The tanks arrived on the outskirts of the al-Zeitoun neighborhood in Gaza City, according to witnesses. “They cut the Salahedine road (linking north to south) and are shooting at any vehicle traveling there,” one of them told AFP.
Israeli army reports “dozens” of Hamas members killed overnight in Gaza
The Israeli army said Monday that its forces had killed “dozens” of fighters during nighttime fighting in the Gaza Strip, bombed in response to the unprecedented bloody attack carried out on October 7 by Palestinian Hamas in Israel.
The army said “troops killed dozens of terrorists who barricaded themselves in buildings and tunnels and attempted to attack them.” A fighter jet targeted a building “with more than 20 Hamas terrorists inside.”
Berlin calls on Israel to ‘protect’ Palestinians from ‘extremist settlers’
The German government on Monday called on Israel to “protect” the Palestinians from “extremist settlers” and to “hold those responsible to account” after the violence perpetrated in the occupied West Bank.
Asked about this during a regular press briefing in Berlin, the spokesperson for the German Foreign Ministry, Sebastian Fischer, said he “clearly condemns this violence which has led to the death of several civilians.”
The human toll continues to rise in Gaza
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 33 aid trucks entered Gaza on Sunday, the largest convoy since the first trucks on October 21. A total of 117 humanitarian aid trucks have been able to enter Gaza since that date, according to a daily report published Monday. “Welcome aid” but insufficient, believes OCHA, which fears “a further deterioration of the disastrous humanitarian situation” and “civil unrest”.
On the ground, the Palestinian Islamist movement reported on Sunday evening “violent fighting (…) using automatic and anti-tank weapons” in the north of Gaza, where the Israeli army has also been operating on the ground since Friday evening. Thousands of buildings were razed in this overpopulated territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, 1.4 million of whom were forced to move. Israel, for its part, announced on Sunday that it was increasing the number of its soldiers and the scale of its operations in the Palestinian territory, after having significantly intensified its strikes since Friday, with the aim of “annihilating” Hamas.
More than 1,400 people died, mainly civilians, during the attack perpetrated by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israel. Hamas, in a new report from its Ministry of Health, claims that 8,306 people, mostly civilians, and almost half of them children, have been killed in Israeli bombings since the start of the war. According to the ministry, 3,457 children and 2,136 women are among these deaths recorded since October 7, the date of an unprecedented bloody attack by Hamas in Israel which sparked the war. More than 21,000 people were injured in the same period in this Palestinian territory, according to the same source.
New strikes in Syria
While the international community fears a regional conflagration, the Israeli army announced Monday that it had struck several targets in Syria in response to rocket fire. Tensions are also high on the Israeli-Lebanese border, where there are almost daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and pro-Palestinian armed groups, including the Lebanese Hezbollah. Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, said on Sunday that it had shot down an Israeli drone over Israeli territory with a surface-to-air missile and announced the death of one of its fighters.
The Israeli army, for its part, reported new shots coming from Lebanon towards the area of Har Dov and Kiryat Shmona and said it had responded. On October 13, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed in southern Lebanon by a strike, and six other journalists, including two from AFP, were injured. In an investigation published on Sunday, the organization Reporters Without Borders, without categorically blaming the Israeli army, asserts that the journalists were “targeted” from the border with Israel.
Tension is also very high in the occupied West Bank. Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire on Sunday, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry. Since October 7, more than 110 Palestinians have been killed there by Israeli soldiers or settlers. And nearly 1,000 Palestinians have been forced to leave their homes, according to the UN. On Sunday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi, whose country supports Hamas, estimated that Israel had crossed “the red lines”, which “could” decide other parties “to take action”.
60 arrests and 9 police officers injured after the assault on an airport in Dagestan
Thousands of kilometers away, in the predominantly Muslim Russian republic of Dagestan, an airport was closed after being stormed by a crowd searching for passengers on a flight from Israel. These incidents were denounced by the authorities of Dagestan while the United States condemned “anti-Semitic demonstrations”.
Sixty people suspected of having stormed the airport were arrested and nine police officers were injured during these clashes, Russian authorities said on Monday. “More than 150 active participants in the unrest have been identified, sixty of them have been arrested,” the press service of the Russian Interior Ministry said in a statement, specifying that two injured police officers had been hospitalized.