Hezbollah announces that it shot down an Israeli march with a surface-to-air missile

Israel bombed homes in the eastern Gaza Strip, a mosque and a cultural center in its south, and its shells created a continuous fire belt in the north on the morning of a new day in its war on the Strip today (Saturday). Dozens were killed and wounded, and the truce efforts – already faltering – received another blow after 43 days during which they did not suffer. The besieged sector tastes calm, according to the Arab World News Agency.

With Israel announcing that the southern Gaza Strip is its next destination, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, anticipated this by announcing yesterday evening (Friday) the bombardment of Tel Aviv with missiles in response to what it described as Israeli massacres against civilians.

While sirens sounded, as is usual in Tel Aviv, warning of hostile missiles that were not reported to have caused damage or injuries, civilians in the Gaza Strip did not have the same warning advantage, as Israel’s missiles and artillery killed and wounded dozens of others throughout the Strip, bringing the death toll to more than 12,000. Including five thousand children and more than three thousand women, in just 43 days and on a geographical area not exceeding 360 square kilometers.

Add to these a number exceeding 30,000 who escaped death, but the six weeks of war left each of them with wounds for which there is no treatment in the Gaza Strip, with hospitals unable to function, either because they ran out of fuel or because they were besieged by Israeli forces.

As for the exhausted neighborhoods dreaming of stopping the fighting in Gaza, north and south, they received news from an Israeli newspaper that reported that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had informed the Qatari mediators of its refusal to complete a prisoner exchange deal with the Hamas movement, according to which 50 Israeli detainees would be released.

The Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth said that Israel is committed to not separating families held in captivity, and to release all children and mothers, while Hamas offered to release 50 detainees without classification or giving Israel the freedom to choose names.

The newspaper’s report, which was not denied or confirmed by the Netanyahu government, was preceded by Zaher Jabareen, the official responsible for the prisoner file in the Hamas movement, talking about negotiations to conclude a ceasefire deal in Gaza for a period of five days.

In his interview with the Arab World News Agency, Jabareen elaborated on the details of the potential deal. He referred to an agreement to release Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of some Palestinian prisoners, women and children, in occupation prisons. Jabareen did not fail to accuse Israel of being “the reason for the faltering of the deal.”

He said: “Israel has no real intention to complete a deal soon.”

He pointed out that “the bombing of hospitals hinders any efforts to negotiate the release of the hostages.”

To the south

The military in Israel is leaving the politics to their politicians, to complete what they began on the seventh of last October, a comprehensive military campaign from land, sea and air on the narrow coastal strip after the Qassam elements and their allies invaded Israeli cities, settlements and camps on a day that began with the firing of three thousand Palestinian rockets at Israel ended up with about 250 of its people prisoners inside Gaza.

After weeks of ground incursion that isolated northern Gaza, the Israeli army announced that its forces would enter the southern Gaza Strip “at the appropriate time.”

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a press conference that the Israeli army “has very clear goals in the war.” He pointed out that the army is determined to advance to wherever Hamas is present.

He added: “We will also advance in the southern Gaza Strip at the appropriate time and place that we determine.”

The Jerusalem Post also quoted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as saying that achieving a complete victory over Hamas will prevent wars for a long time in the future.

Galant added that although the war with Hamas is a local conflict, the repercussions of this war will affect the entire Middle East region.

He continued: “Complete victory in this war will prevent the outbreak of future wars for a long time.”

Yesterday, Israel recovered the bodies of two female soldiers recovered from the Gaza Strip under circumstances that were not disclosed during the past two days. While the Israeli army continues to search for remaining prisoners, the Al-Qassam Brigades reported that it had transferred a number of detainees to receive treatment in medical centers due to the seriousness of their health condition.

The Al-Qassam Brigades added in a statement on Telegram: “In response to Netanyahu and his army spokesman’s lie about the presence of prisoners in hospitals… we transferred a number of them to care centers to receive treatment due to the seriousness of their health condition and to preserve their lives.”

The statement continued that this matter “recently happened with detainee Aryeh Zalmen Zdmanovich… who received intensive care and after recovering, he was returned to his place of detention and died due to panic attacks as a result of repeated shelling around his place of detention.”

Also on the ground, Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, said that the movement was able to destroy and damage 62 Israeli military vehicles during the past four days.

The spokesman added that Al-Qassam fighters managed “three days ago to kill at least nine Israeli soldiers in two separate operations.”

He continued, “Yesterday, members of the Al-Qassam Brigades destroyed a residential apartment in which special Israeli forces were holed up in Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, which led to the death and injury of everyone holed up in it.”

Abu Ubaida mocked what the Israeli army was doing at the Shifa Medical Complex and said that Israel was searching for a mirage there, which demonstrated its inability.

He added that what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is searching for in Al-Shifa Hospital is “ridiculous.”

Yesterday there were deaths in Jenin and today in Nablus and Tubas

The Palestinian Red Crescent announced that at least five people were killed in an explosion in Balata camp, east of Nablus in the West Bank, on Saturday.

This comes as witnesses told the Arab World News Agency that there was an Israeli bombing of Nablus, as electricity was cut off in the vicinity of a targeted area of ​​the camp.

The Palestinian News Agency reported that an Israeli drone bombed the headquarters of the Fatah movement in the camp, noting that major damage was caused to the place.

Palestine TV reported earlier today that an Israeli army force stormed the city of Tulkarm in the West Bank. Video footage broadcast on television showed Israeli military vehicles driving along a main street in the city, raising Israeli flags. It was not immediately clear what caused the raid or its results.

Not far away in Tubas, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli army gunfire after confrontations and clashes with gunmen that also left three wounded, according to a medical source who spoke to the Arab World News Agency.

Also in Tubas, the Palestinian News Agency indicated that the army sent military reinforcements towards Tubas, where it described the ongoing clashes as violent.

After another bloody night in Jenin, the Palestinian News Agency reported on Friday evening that new confrontations broke out between Palestinians and Israeli forces in the town of Ya`bad, southwest of the city.

The agency quoted sources as saying that an Israeli army force stormed the town and raided several neighborhoods, leading to the outbreak of confrontations.

The Israeli newspaper “Jerusalem Post” later reported that the army was conducting an operation near Hebron and Jenin in the West Bank to arrest individuals suspected of involvement in activities it described as “terrorist.”

Gaza is on the Security Council table again

On the other hand, the UAE mission to the United Nations said on Saturday that it and Malta had called for a Security Council meeting next week, in light of what it described as “the extremely worrying developments in the occupied Palestinian territory, and their severe impact on women and children.”

The Council session, the date of which is not yet known, will be the latest attempt by the United Nations to stop the Palestinian bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, which continues despite the Security Council passing a few days ago a draft resolution that called for humanitarian truces in Gaza.

The UAE mission said that it requested the Executive Director of UN Women and the Executive Director of UNICEF to provide briefings to the Council.

The Palestinian Ambassador to the European Union, Abdel Rahim Al-Farra, expected that the European Union would come out with a unified position on a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza during an emergency meeting of its foreign ministers next Monday.

Also in politics, the Palestinian Ambassador to the European Union, Abdel Rahim Al-Farra, believes that the European Union may come out with a unified position on a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza during an emergency meeting of its foreign ministers the day after tomorrow, Monday.

Al-Farra told the Arab World News Agency that the European Union “is witnessing more than rapid movement now to stop this aggression, but without a direct statement in this regard,” referring to the travel of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to Egypt today, Saturday, where she will visit Cairo and then Amman.

European Union Foreign Affairs Commissioner Josep Borrell is visiting the region, where he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on Friday and called on Israel “not to be led by anger” in the war.

Al-Farra revealed that von der Leyen will go to Al-Arish in northern Sinai, Egypt, “to see the volume of humanitarian aid coming from European Union countries, and will receive at Al-Arish airport two cargo planes carrying humanitarian materials and medical equipment.”

The Palestinian ambassador believes that the President of the European Commission aims, through her visit to Egypt and Jordan, “to find out the truth about Israel’s obstruction of the entry of aid, after a request from the Arab countries to the European Commission to pressure Israel to stop obstructing the entry of this humanitarian aid into Gaza.”