Find here our situation update published yesterday.
The Israeli army intensely bombed the Gaza Strip on Friday January 19, killing nearly eighty Palestinians according to Hamas, and its soldiers continue to wage fierce battles against the Islamist movement in the town of Khan Younes, which has become the epicenter of the battle. In the early hours of Friday, witnesses reported heavy fire and airstrikes in Khan Younes, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip, where according to Israel many members of the leadership of Hamas, classified as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
Most of the fighting is now in the south, but the army says it continues to face attacks from isolated Hamas groups in the north of the 362 square kilometer territory, devastated by the bombing, which has pushed about 80 % of the population to flee to the south.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7 in southern Israel, which killed 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse count, from official figures. According to the Hamas-administered Ministry of Health, 24,762 people, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, were killed and 62,108 injured in Israeli operations.
Gradual return of telephone and Internet
Communications are gradually starting to return in certain areas of Gaza after a week of outage, announced the Palestinian operator Paltel. The operator announced, on, “the gradual return of telecommunications in several sectors of the Gaza Strip” who had been without phone or internet for a week. This resumption was later confirmed by the Hamas telecommunications ministry.
Before this recovery, the network monitoring organization NetBlocks had claimed that this outage was ” the longest “ recorded since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement.
These cuts limit “seriously the visibility of what is happening on the ground”, noted NetBlocks. They prevent the inhabitants of Gaza from having “access to vital information or call first aid, and hinder other forms of humanitarian response”deplores in particular the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Joe Biden spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu
Joe Biden spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday during “30 to 40 minutes”, announced the White House. This is their first conversation since December 23, and it comes at a time of friction between the United States and Israel.
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The US president and the Israeli prime minister, whose personal relationship is notoriously difficult, discussed “the latest events in Gaza and Israel”according to the American executive, which promises to publish a report of the exchange later.
Benjamin Netanyahu rejected, on Thursday, a recurring request from Joe Biden, namely the coexistence, in the future, of the State of Israel with a Palestinian state: “Israel must have security control over all territory west of the Jordan River. This is a necessary condition, which is in contradiction with the idea of sovereignty [palestinienne] »declared the Prime Minister, specifying that he had said this directly to the Americans.
But Joe Biden “always believes in perspective and possibility” of a Palestinian state, White House spokesman John Kirby said Friday, but he “recognizes that it will take a lot of work to get there.”
In Lebanon, three houses destroyed by Israeli strikes on the border
At least three houses were “completely destroyed” by Israeli aircraft in the village of Kfar Kila, in southern Lebanon, announced the official Lebanese press agency (ANI) and the mayor of the border town. ANI reported four houses targeted “since this morning by the Israeli air force in Kfar Kila”three of which were “completely destroyed”.
“If Israel decides to expand its aggression, it will receive a real slap in response”, declared Sheikh Naïm Qassem, number two of Hezbollah, in a press release. He further reiterated his remarks that a restoration of stability at the border and ” In the region “ was conditioned by the “end of aggression in Gaza”.
The violence has left more than 195 dead in Lebanon, including at least 142 fighters from Hezbollah, supported by Iran, which has a strong presence in the south of the country. On the Israeli side, 15 people died, 9 soldiers and 6 civilians, according to the Israeli army.
The United States hits the Houthis again in Yemen
The United States has “successfully carried out three defensive strikes” against Houthi rebels in Yemen, said White House spokesman John Kirby. He said these operations targeted missile launchers ready to strike in the Red Sea.
Yemeni rebels, who claim to target ships “linked to Israel”in a sign of solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, had earlier claimed responsibility for new strikes against an American merchant ship circulating in the Gulf of Aden.
European Union takes sanctions against six people accused of financing Hamas
The European Union announced that it had taken individual sanctions against six people accused of financing Hamas. These people include Musa Dudin, a senior official in Hamas’s investment office, as well as several financial figures in Sudan, Algeria and Lebanon. “They will see their assets frozen in the European Union and will be prohibited from entering our territory”announced a senior EU official on condition of anonymity.
The EU, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, has strengthened its arsenal of sanctions against it since the October 7 attack. She added Tuesday to her list of “terrorists” Yahya Sinouar, the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement in Gaza.
On Monday January 22, EU foreign ministers will meet, separately, their Israeli counterparts, Israel Katz, and Palestinian, Riyad Al-Maliki.