Despite Israel’s announcement that it suffered its largest losses in more than a month after its forces were ambushed in the Gaza Strip, and at a time when it faces increasing diplomatic isolation with the rising number of civilian deaths and a worsening humanitarian catastrophe in the Strip, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the army will fight despite international pressure.
Published on: 14/12/2023 – 02:49
4 minutes
“Biggest loss since October”
Netanyahu told soldiers in Gaza via walkie-talkies, “We will continue until the end, until victory, until the elimination of Hamas.” He continued, “I say this in the face of great pain, but also in the face of international pressure. Nothing will stop us.”
Israel announced that ten of its soldiers were killed in the past twenty-four hours, including a colonel in the Golani Infantry Brigade and a lieutenant colonel who commanded a battalion in the Golani Brigade. This is the largest loss among Israeli forces in one day since 15 were killed on October 31.
The Israeli army stated that most of the deaths occurred in the Shujaiya neighborhood in Gaza City, north of the Strip, where the forces were ambushed while trying to rescue another group of soldiers who attacked fighters in a building. An army official said that Israel paid a “very heavy price” in the incident.
“Illusion”
The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) said that the incident showed that Israeli forces would never be able to subjugate Gaza.
Hamas continued, “We say to the Zionists that your failed leadership has no regard for the lives of your soldiers who are killed and injured every day in the dozens, and you have no choice but to withdraw from Gaza. The longer you stay there, the greater the bill of your deaths and losses will be, and you will emerge from it with the tail of disappointment and loss, God willing.”
Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ political bureau, said in a television speech that any future arrangements in Gaza without Hamas are “an illusion and a mirage.”
The White House postpones the sale of rifles
Two informed sources said that the Biden administration will postpone the sale of more than 20,000 American-made rifles to Israel due to fears of increasing Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank.
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who is visiting the region, will discuss with the Israelis the need to be more precise in their strikes against Hamas targets, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
A US official said that Sullivan met with Saudi officials on Wednesday and discussed with them “broader diplomatic efforts to maintain stability across the region and prevent the expansion of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.”
“The darkest chapter”
Planes again bombed the Gaza Strip, and relief agency officials said that the arrival of rainy winter weather exacerbates the deterioration of the situation that hundreds of thousands of families are suffering from while sleeping in primitive tents. The vast majority of the Strip’s population of 2.3 million people have become displaced.
Hundreds of thousands of people sought shelter in Rafah at the southern edge of the Strip, and the bodies of family members, including several young children, killed in an air strike last night lay in the rain in blood-stained white shrouds while the body of a newborn baby was wrapped in a pink blanket. the color.
Despite the presence of these displaced people in the place, the Israeli army continues to target Rafah, as the bombing of two homes resulted in the deaths of 24 people on Tuesday, according to the Ministry of Health, which is run by the Hamas movement.
In Geneva, Lazzarini stressed that the people of Gaza “no longer have time or options.”
“Facing bombing, deprivation and disease, in an increasingly narrow space, (the Palestinians) are facing the darkest chapter in their history since 1948, even though it is a painful history,” he said during the Global Refugee Forum.
Safe areas are “unsafe”
At an IDF press conference, spokeswoman Keren Hagioff said the army was taking several measures to prevent civilian casualties.
She stated that these measures include encouraging civilians to move away “temporarily” from the line of fire, which now extends throughout most parts of Gaza. But a spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) told CBS News on Wednesday that the so-called safe zones in Gaza “are simply unsafe.”
An Israeli army statement earlier on Wednesday indicated that since it designated a humanitarian zone for civilians in the Gaza Strip on October 18, 116 rockets have been launched from there towards Israel, 38 of which landed inside Gaza.
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2023-12-14 01:49:32
