On Monday, Beniamin Netanyahu raised the intensity of the Israeli offensive in Gaza another notch. The premier visited his troops in the strip to make it clear on the same front that the war continues. “The recruits in Gaza ask me to continue until the end,” he later emphasized to members of his party in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.
Was anyone thinking about a ceasefire? Not him: “They all asked me for one thing: we must not stop. And we are not going to stop. We will continue fighting and increase the fighting in the coming days. This will be a long battle and it is not close to being over,” he argues.
The prime minister has insisted in recent days that his decision is firm. Netanyahu wants to end Hamas at any cost. Netanyahu also seeks to nip in the bud any speculation about a new ceasefire, as demanded from Israel by some of the relatives of the 129 hostages held by Hamas. In recent days, in fact, thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to demand his departure from the Government.
The Christmas holidays have not brought a respite in Gaza. On the ground the facts make it clear. The war will be three months old in two weeks and the attacks are intensifying. The leaders of Hamas and also the masterminds of the massacre of October 7, however, remain unaccounted for despite the fact that the army claimed on Sunday to have killed 8,000 Palestinian combatants in the war.
In Gaza, meanwhile, more death. Yesterday Israel was investigating the death of at least 100 people in the Al Maghazi refugee camp, in the center of the strip, after an attack on Sunday. The bloody weekend continued early on Monday: authorities in the strip reported that 12 people had died near the village of Az Zawaida (center) and another 10, all from the same family, in Khan Yunis (south). . During Christmas night from Sunday to Monday, Israeli airstrikes also caused 78 deaths, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. It is considered the deadliest night Gaza has experienced so far. The more than 250 people killed in the last 24 hours bring the total casualty count in Gaza to 20,674.
Information from the ground, which is arriving slowly, also indicates that Israel is intensifying the air and ground offensive in the Al Burayi refugee camp, in central Gaza and close to Az Zawaida, and also in Nuseirat, further to the north.
Last Saturday, the Israeli Chief of Staff pointed out that his forces had largely achieved operational control of northern Gaza, but the offensive has not subsided, quite the opposite, according to all available information. For Netanyahu, controlling the area is considered a priority objective. And even more so when the country is still discussing how the massacre of October 7 on the border with the strip could have happened, how his intelligence services could have overlooked it, why the attack could not be prevented. And when the number of dead Israeli soldiers is already 156 since the beginning of the ground offensive in Palestinian territory on October 27.
The Islamic Jihad, which fights with Hamas in Gaza, for its part yesterday rejected a possible truce and exchange of prisoners with Israel. The new attempt was announced late Sunday from Egypt only to fail just a few hours after being proposed. It was the second failure after the presence of leader Ismail Haniye, leader of Hamas, in Cairo also did not serve to advance the negotiations.
The extreme situation in Gaza is expected to last for a long time despite the complaints and requests coming from abroad. On Monday, the Pope denounced in his traditional Christmas message the “desperate” humanitarian situation of its inhabitants, asked for a ceasefire and the release of the hostages. International organizations simultaneously criticized the latest UN Security Council resolution that ruled out demanding a ceasefire as insufficient.
UN officials in the area and members of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned yesterday that the situation of the 2.3 million inhabitants crowded into Gaza is catastrophic, with a lack of water and food.
The dangerous volatility of the situation became clear yesterday after a suspected Israeli airstrike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, Damascus, killed a senior member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard on Monday. Sayyed Razi Mousavi was considered responsible for coordinating the actions of the pro-Iranian militias in Syria. His death may have consequences on Israel’s border with Lebanon due to the presence in the north of the Hizbullah militias, which receive financing from Iran. Alerts about rocket launches are repeated every day and the Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, reported late yesterday that the Israeli Defense Forces are going to increase their efforts against this militia.
The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem asked on Sunday, on his traditional walk to Bethlehem, with his mind on Gaza, for an immediate truce because “violence leads to more violence.” In the Holy Land, for now, no one thinks about it.
