Israel redoubles its attack on Gaza and warns of total war in Lebanon while Hamas rules out releasing more hostages

The end of the seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas, which ended this Friday morning, has led to an intensification of attacks in the Gaza Strip, where there are already more than 15,500 dead, while the Israeli Army returns to clash with the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon.

Israel has resumed “with full force” the offensive on the Palestinian enclave, where this Sunday it reported that its troops continue to attack “terrorist targets”. This situation further aggravates the humanitarian crisis in the Strip, with 15,523 Palestinians dead and 41,316 injured since the beginning of the war, according to what the Gaza Ministry of Health reported this Sunday.

The latest balance estimates the number of deaths in the last hours at 316, but clarifies that a large number of dead are still trapped under the rubble of the Israeli bombings.. Likewise, a spokesman for the Hamas Information Office had estimated more than 700 Palestinians dead since Saturday following an Israeli attack on eastern Gaza City that had destroyed dozens of residential buildings.

“The Israeli occupation continues to expand its attacks against civilians after the end of the truce, and has not left a single centimeter in the Strip without bombing,” Ashraf al Qudra, spokesman for the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas, denounced this Sunday. .

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already reaffirmed this Saturday that he will continue his “justified war” despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire.. Thus, according to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the results of his troops have been “very impressive”, with “thousands of terrorists eliminated, dozens of headquarters attacked, extensive information collected, and hundreds of terrorists captured and being interrogated in Israel.” “.

Tensions continue to rise and the Israeli Army announced this Sunday an extension of its bombings on southern Gaza, specifically in Khan Younis, where the Army's Arabic spokesman, Avichay Adraee, has urged residents to leave the city before “the resumption of vigorous actions” by the military “against Hamas and other terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip.”

On the other hand, Israeli troops are also operating on the Lebanese border while Hamas has launched a dozen rockets against Tel Aviv, in what is the first attack against the city since the end of the truce.. Israeli television has reported that the rockets have injured at least one person in Holon, in the south of the town.

Similarly, Israel has denounced a launch from the territory of Syria, whose origin “was attacked with artillery fire”, a day after an alleged Israeli rocket attack reached the outskirts of Damascus and Iran reported the death in this country of two “advisors” of the Revolutionary Guard in a bombing, also Israeli.

“In addition, the IDF has attacked several areas of Lebanese territory with artillery fire,” adds the Israeli Army, once again engaged in hostilities with Hezbollah militias on the border between the two countries.

Hezbollah resumes attacks despite warnings

The Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and Israel have also exchanged fire again in the border area after the end of the truce in Gaza, which allowed a week of general calm also on the Lebanese front. Israeli forces confirmed this Saturday “attacks against Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon” with aerial bombardments and artillery shells after reporting attacks on Israeli checkpoints.

“In support of our determined Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and in support of their brave and honorable Resistance, the mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance attacked a congregation of enemy soldiers in the vicinity of the Jal al Alam post this Friday,” Hezbollah announced. it's a statement.

Given this escalation of the conflict, Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that Lebanon will be “destroyed” if Hezbollah enters total war. “We are going to restore security in the north and south. “If Hezbollah makes the mistake and enters into a full-scale war, it will have destroyed Lebanon with its own hands,” Netanyahu said this Saturday.

“We are acting in the north against all Hezbollah initiatives against us. We are eliminating terrorist cells, moving them away from the border, destroying ammunition. “We are going to continue with strong deterrence in the north and total victory in the south,” he added.

However, militias in southern Lebanon continued to exchange artillery fire this weekend. A total of eleven Israeli soldiers have been injured with a moderate or mild prognosis by the impact of an anti-tank projectile launched this Sunday against a military vehicle near Beit Hillel, in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon.

The soldiers exited the vehicle seconds before a projectile launched from Lebanon hit it, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth, but they were hit by shrapnel.. Other projectiles have hit Israeli military positions near the border with no reports of material or personal damage at the moment.

This attack was followed by “multiple launches” of projectiles towards communities in northern Israel, also near the border, some of which even fell within Lebanese territory, according to the Israeli military spokesperson.. In response, the Army attacked the sites from which both attacks originated.

In less than two months, the outbreak of violence between the parties forced more than 55,000 people to leave their homes in southern Lebanon, in addition to causing dozens of deaths, nearly 300 injuries and significant material damage on that side of the border alone. .

Netanyahu insists on excluding the Palestinian Authority

The prime minister also assured this Saturday that he will not allow the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), which governs small parts of the occupied West Bank, to control the Gaza Strip: “I will not make the mistake of allowing the PNA to govern in Gaza, it will be the same as Hamas”. Instead, he advocated for “a new vision, a change” in the Palestinian enclave, involving “Israeli security and control.”

Thus, he assures that the Palestinian Authority will not play any role. “They are people who pay murderers and who raise their children to hate Israel, to murder Jews and, ultimately, to make the State of Israel disappear,” he said before calling the Palestinian Authority “a defective mechanism.” and a terrible mistake.”

“Are we going to reinstate in Gaza the same entity that has not been reformed? Is that what our best friends are advising us? I think differently,” he added, referring to the position of the United States, Israel's main partner and defender of the creation of a Palestinian state, which has advocated the unification of Gaza and the West Bank under PA government once the war ends.

Netanyahu rejects that possibility, arguing that the ANP and Hamas have in common “the ideology that denies the existence of Israel.”. “We are certainly feeling international pressure, I will not deny it, but since the war started I have created international space against this pressure, I speak with dozens of leaders every day (…) We do not always agree, but we are the ones who we decided,” he stressed.

For the prime minister, the war must not stop until it achieves its three objectives: recover all the hostages, destroy Hamas and ensure that the Islamist group will not again be a threat to Israel.. “There is no way to achieve these objectives without winning and there is no way to win without a ground (military) presence.”

In contrast, the Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has responded to the prime minister's words by framing the entire Israeli military operation as an effort to consolidate the total separation that exists between Gaza and the West Bank, thus literally breaking in two the efforts to “materialize an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

“Netanyahu and his war cabinet continue to beat the drums of war under false pretenses and pretexts, repeating like a broken record their unjustified attacks on the Palestinian National Authority and its leaders,” the Ministry lamented on Twitter.

Hamas rules out further hostage release

Hamas rules out new exchanges of hostages for prisoners until there is a definitive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, information confirmed this Sunday by the spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, when advancing that the talks to reach a new truce and facilitate new hostage exchanges in Gaza are completely paralyzed.

“Right now there are no negotiations for a truce. There will be no exchange of prisoners until the aggression stops and there is a comprehensive and definitive ceasefire,” Hamas' number two, Salé al Aruri, said this Saturday in statements to the Qatari network Al Jazeera.

Likewise, Israel announced the withdrawal of a team of negotiators that was discussing in the Qatari capital, Doha, the possibility of reactivating the truce with Hamas after regretting that the talks are currently going through a “deadlock” over the circumstances of new exchanges between hostages and prisoners.

“Right now there are no official negotiations,” John Kirby told NBC's Meet the Press, before blaming Hamas for the paralysis for its lack of consensus when it came to releasing Israeli women, according to a list preliminary that he had initially accepted before backing down.

However, the Islamic group denies that it is true.. “The occupation insists that there are still women and children being held, but we have handed them all over. The prisoners remaining in Gaza are male soldiers and civilians who have been in the occupation army,” said al-Aruri, considered the leader of Hamas in the West Bank.

Kirby also noted that “Hamas had also agreed to allow the Red Cross to visit the hostages while the humanitarian pause was in effect” which ended on Friday “but such a thing has not happened, nor is it happening.”

“The negotiations, unfortunately, have stopped, but what has not stopped is our role in trying to free the hostages held by the Palestinian militias,” Kirby added.. “We would like the talks to resume today, but right now we don't know,” he said.

Furthermore, Kirby acknowledged the “concern” about the forced displacement of one and a half million Palestinians.. “That is why we are working with Israel so that the population of Gaza feels safe,” he added. In this sense, he considered the publication by Israel of a map by sectors of Gaza in which its upcoming bombings are progressing as a positive development.. “There aren't many armies in the world that do that.”

A total of 136 hostages remained in the hands of Hamas and associated Palestinian militias at the time of the end of the truce on Friday.. Ten of the hostages are 75 years old or older. The vast majority of the hostages, 125, are Israelis. Eleven are foreign nationals, including eight from Thailand.