Bande de Gaza (Territoires palestiniens) (AFP) – Israel on Monday continues its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where starvation threatens civilians after a sad Christmas night for Palestinians in Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank, under the burden of war that has been going on for more than two months.
Published on: 12/25/2023 – 06:49 Last updated: 12/25/2023 – 06:47
6 minutes
On Christmas Eve, the bombing in the Palestinian Strip did not stop for a moment. Early Monday, a bombing killed 12 people near the small village of Al-Zawaida (central), according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
The ministry said in a statement that a bombing in Khan Yunis (south) claimed the lives of at least 18 people. Israel launched about fifty successive strikes on the center of the Gaza Strip.
The weekend witnessed a large number of deaths in the densely populated Gaza Strip, which has been controlled by the Hamas movement since 2007, which Israel, the United States, and the European Union consider a “terrorist organization.”
At least seventy people were killed in a raid on the Maghazi refugee camp on Sunday, according to the Hamas government.
On the Israeli side, more than 15 soldiers were killed during the past three days. On Monday morning, the Israeli army announced the killing of two more soldiers, bringing to 156 the total casualties of forces operating on the ground in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, “We are paying a very high price for the war, but we have no choice but to continue fighting.”
“We are facing monsters,” he stressed in his Christmas message addressed to Christians around the world, considering that “this is not only a battle for Israel against these savages, but also a battle of civilization against barbarism.”
The Christmas spirit is absent
“In war, no one feels the holiday spirit,” said Palestinian Christian Fadi Al-Sayegh, who spent Christmas Eve in the dialysis department of a hospital in Khan Yunis, where Israel has intensified its operations in recent days.
Palestinian scouts raise a banner reading “We want life, not death” in Bethlehem on December 24, 2023 © Hazem Badr/AFP
This refugee, who is now far from his remaining family in Gaza City, added, “We should have been praying now and visiting the holy places, but we are under bombing and war. There is no joy for Eid, no Christmas tree, no decorations, no family dinner, and no celebrations,” stressing, “I pray that “The war ends as soon as possible.”
The conflict led to the deaths of 20,424 people in the Gaza Strip, most of them women, teenagers and children, according to the latest report issued by the Hamas Ministry of Health. 1.9 million people, or 85 percent of the Gaza Strip’s population, were forced to flee their homes, according to the United Nations.
Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas after the unprecedented and violent attack launched by the movement on October 7, which resulted in 1,140 deaths, most of them civilians, according to the latest Israeli official figures.
On that day, Hamas militants kidnapped about 250 people, 129 of whom are still detained in Gaza, according to Israel.
“We must stop these hostilities and turn the page,” the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Pierbattista Pizzaballa, who came to celebrate Christmas in Bethlehem in the West Bank, wearing a black and white keffiyeh around his neck, said on Sunday.
In this city, the birthplace of Jesus Christ according to Christian tradition, the Palestinian municipality canceled a large part of Christmas celebrations and an atmosphere of sadness prevails.
In front of the Church of the Nativity, the Christmas grotto was absent this year and was replaced by a symbol of the massacre to which the citizens of Gaza were subjected, with two gray statues of the Virgin Mary and Joseph amidst rubble and behind barbed wire.
Student Nicole Najjar (18 years old) told AFP, “It is very difficult to celebrate any occasion while our people are dying.”
“The losing logic of war”
“Our heart is in Bethlehem this evening,” Pope Francis said during Christmas Mass in Rome, denouncing the “losing logic of war.”
In Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, Israa Abu Al-Awf (27 years old) collapsed after Sunday’s bombing of a residential neighborhood where she had taken refuge. “Enough suffering! Let’s stop making these children suffer, let’s stop imposing this painful future on them,” she told AFP.
She added, “I tell you, Netanyahu, every child (…) will grow up wanting to avenge his father, mother, and uncle (…) An entire army will rise to take revenge on Israel again. Let’s stop this.”
The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains catastrophic. Most hospitals there are out of service, and in the next six weeks, the entire population faces the risk of a high level of food insecurity that could lead to famine, the United Nations says.
World Health Organization head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday that “the destruction of the health system in Gaza is a tragedy.”
Although the United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on Friday calling for the delivery of humanitarian aid “immediately” and “on a large scale,” no significant increase in this area was recorded.
The Jordanian army announced on Sunday evening that its planes dropped aid for about 800 people who took refuge in St. Porphyry Church in the northern Gaza Strip.
As for the Egyptian and Qatari mediators, they are still trying to negotiate a new truce after a seven-day cessation of fighting at the end of November that allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners, in addition to the entry of large humanitarian aid convoys into Gaza.
A source in the Islamic Jihad movement stated that the movement’s Secretary-General, Ziad al-Nakhalah, arrived at the head of a delegation to Cairo.
Acts of torture?
The Israeli army announced on Sunday that it had discovered “an arms depot adjacent to schools, a mosque, and a medical center” containing “explosive belts suitable for children, dozens of mortar shells, hundreds of grenades, and intelligence equipment.”
He said that, as part of his operations, he arrests “people suspected of involvement in terrorist activities,” stressing that those “who are proven not to participate in terrorist activities are released.”
However, Palestinians who were released after being arrested in the Gaza Strip told AFP that they had been subjected to torture, which the army denies.
Nayef Ali (22 years old) confirmed, “They tied my hands behind my back for two days. We had nothing to drink or eat, and they did not allow us to use the toilets. They beat and just beat.”
On Sunday, Hamas called on the International Committee of the Red Cross to investigate these arrests.
© 2023 AFP
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2023-12-25 05:49:04
