THE Israeli army continues today to bombard the southern sector of the Gaza Strip with intensity, against the background of the chaotic disputes between Israel and the US over the potential establishment of a Palestinian state, and at the same time the spread of conflict to Yemen.
In the early hours of the morning, witnesses reported heavy gunfire and repeated airstrikes in Khan Younis, the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, an area where the Israeli military says leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas are hiding. The Palestinian one Red Crescent denounced the “intense” artillery fire in the area where the Amal (“Hope”) hospital is located, while the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reports that there are many dead and wounded due to overnight strikes in Khan Younis, the focus of hostilities in the enclave in recent years weeks.
“Soldiers supported by artillery and air force eliminated dozens of terrorists (in hand-to-hand combat)” in Khan Younis, announced Chahal, the Israeli army, assuring that has reached the “southernmost” part of the Gaza Strip until now after starting ground operations, initially in the north of the Palestinian enclave. In the Gaza Strip, where at least 80% of the population has been forced to flee their homes due to shelling or fighting, the humanitarian situation is becoming increasingly critical. The World Health Organization (WHO) announced overnight that it has recorded 24 cases of hepatitis A, a contagious kidney disease, as well as “thousands” of jaundice cases, which are “probably” linked to the spread of this form of hepatitis.
“The inhumane living conditions – almost no potable water, no clean toilets, nor the ability to disinfect one's surroundings – will allow the hepatitis A to spread further,” underlined Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the WHO, through X (the former Twitter), describing the health situation as “explosively dangerous”. The trigger for this war was an unprecedented attack by Hamas' military wing on southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7 that killed some 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official statements by the authorities. About 250 other people were abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip when the attack took place. About a hundred were released when a week-long truce was declared at the end of November. According to Israeli authorities, 132 still remain in the Palestinian enclave, but 27 are believed to be dead.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to “wipe out” the Palestinian Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, and its military operations have since killed at least 24,620 people, the vast majority of them women and children, according to Hamas' health ministry. , which also mentions 61,830 injured.
A Palestinian state?
“We will settle for nothing less than total victory, which means the elimination of terrorist leaders, the destruction of its operational and military capabilities Hamasthe return of our hostages home, the demilitarization of Gaza and full control from a security point of view and above all what enters” the enclave, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted yesterday.
For her “victory” will take “months”, which will be “long,” he warned. Before adding that “Israel must maintain security control over the entire area west of the Jordan” river, which he called a “necessary condition” for any “solution”, although he acknowledged that this “goes completely against the idea of (Palestinian) national sovereignty' in the West Bank.
“Obviously we see things differently,” commented the spokesman for the US presidency's national security council, John Kirby, when asked about the statements of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, who appeared to reject US calls for the establishment of a Palestinian state. For USA, Israel's main ally and key supporter in its military operations against Hamas, the creation and recognition of a viable Palestinian state is essential for “true security”. During the night, the Israeli army carried out raids in various sectors of the occupied West Bank, especially in Tulkarem, where the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian Authority speaks of at least 6 dead since yesterday Wednesday.
The international community is increasingly concerned about the spread of this war, the daily exchanges of fire on the Israel/Lebanon border, the proliferation of Houthi attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, and, in the last week, the intensification of American bombing in Yemen.
Houthi vs. Washington
Yemeni rebels claimed early morning strikes on a US merchant ship operated by a Greek shipping company in the Gulf of Aden, the latest attack by the Iran-backed movement against international shipping in a show of “solidarity” with Palestinians in the Strip. of Gaza, which, however, according to Washington, did not cause casualties or material damage. According to the specialized website Marine Traffic, the Chem Ranger is a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker that has been sailing for the past few days off the coast of Yemen.
The Joint Command of the US armed forces responsible for the Middle East region (CENTCOM, “Central Command”) confirmed that the Houthis did indeed target a US merchant ship operated by a Greek shipping company yesterday Thursday with “two missiles”, but without to hit the Chem Ranger, as the insurgents claimed. Earlier on Thursday, the US military launched bombardments to destroy missiles of the Houthi which were “to be launched immediately” against ships in the Red Sea.
This was the fifth time that Washington has carried out raids against positions of Yemen's Houthis, a movement which it added last Wednesday to a list of “terrorist” organizations it is drawing up.
Source: News Beast
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