After announcing that the battle would likely intensify, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized that Hamas must be annihilated, the region must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be “deradicalized” in order for peace to be reached in Gaza.
The announcements coincided with the World Health Organization’s Monday revelation of “harrowing” tales of whole families being killed in strikes on a Gaza refugee camp on Christmas Eve.
The battle has escalated tensions throughout the Middle East and ravaged Palestinian territory due to Israeli’s relentless assaults. As a result, there is growing international demand for a ceasefire.
But in an opinion piece that was published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday night, Netanyahu vowed to stick with the plan.
“Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarised, and Palestinian society must be deradicalised. These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbours in Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
He said demilitarisation “will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter” of the territory.
“For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza,” he said.
Earlier on Monday Netanyahu visited Gaza, telling a meeting of his Likud party after his return: “We’re not stopping”.
“We’re intensifying the fighting in the coming days,” he said, according to a party statement.
‘Harrowing accounts’
On October 7, when Palestinian terrorists breached the militarized border and launched an attack on southern Israel, the war in Gaza broke out, killing roughly 1,140 people, the majority of them were civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli numbers.
Fighters also seized about 250 hostages, Israel says.
In response, Israel declared it would destroy Hamas and initiated a military campaign of retaliation that included a heavy aerial bombardment and a siege of the region. The health ministry operated by Hamas in Gaza reports that the campaign has killed at least 20,674 Palestinians, the majority of them were women and children.
The Al-Maghazi refugee camp’s inhabitants returned to the remains of their homes on Monday following attacks that, according to Gaza’s health ministry, claimed at least 70 lives the day before. That toll could not be independently verified by AFP.
Zeyad Awad said there was no evacuation warning before the strikes.
“What should we do? We are civilians, living peacefully and wanting only safety and security,” he said.
“Yet we are suddenly struck by Israeli warplanes without any warning.”
WHO staff visited a hospital treating victims of the Al-Maghazi strikes.
The “team heard harrowing accounts shared by health workers and victims”, the UN health agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media.
“One child had lost their whole family in the strike on the camp. A nurse at the hospital suffered the same loss,” he added.
Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator who joined the mission to the hospital, described the fate of a nine-year-old being treated who was expected to die.
“He was crossing the street in front of the shelter where his family is staying and the building beside him blew up,” he said.
The Israeli army said it was “reviewing the incident”, adding it was “committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians”.
‘Real hunger’
Large tracts of Gaza are in ruins, and the 2.4 million residents there are suffering from severe shortages of fuel, food, water, and medicine, which are only made better by the sporadic arrival of relief vehicles.
Dozens of Gazans stood on a roadway in southern Gaza’s Rafah, clutching empty containers as they awaited the distribution of food.
“Now there is real hunger. My children are dying of hunger,” said one of them, Nour Ismail.
An estimated 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many fleeing south and crowded into shelters or makeshift tents in the winter cold.
“A humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza is the only way forward,” said the head of the UN refugee agency, Filippo Grandi.
In Monday’s Likud meeting, Netanyahu said he was ready to support the voluntary migration of civilians out of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
He reportedly told party members “Our problem is not whether to allow an exit, but that there will be countries that are willing to absorb an exit”.
Hamas rejected any discussion of such a plan as “absurd”.
Palestinians “refuse to be deported and displaced. There can’t be exile and there is no other choice than to remain on our land”, it said in a statement.
‘Free our hostages’
During an extraordinary session of parliament on Monday, Netanyahu again spoke about the 129 hostages that Israel claims are still in Gaza. Families waiting for their loved ones to return after an 80-day captivity jeered at him.
“Now! Now!” relatives chanted as Netanyahu said Israeli forces needed “more time” to increase military pressure on Hamas, which he argued would help to secure the captives’ release.
After two additional Israeli military killings were announced early on Tuesday morning, the total number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza has now reached 158.
On Monday, however, worries about a regional escalation only grew.
Razi Moussavi, who state media referred to as “one of the most experienced advisers” of the military force’s international wing, was killed, according to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran, during an Israeli airstrike in Syria.
Israel, which has increased its strikes on targets in Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas conflict, did not immediately respond.
The United States established a naval task force to thwart missile and drone strikes after Yemen’s Huthi rebels, who are also supported by Iran, opened fire on cargo ships in the Red Sea.