Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tonight called on Hamas fighters to lay down their arms without delay, saying that in recent days they have recorded numerous surrenders that herald the "beginning of the end" of the Palestinian Islamist movement.
"They lay down their arms and surrender to our heroic soldiers. It will take time. The war continues, but this is the beginning of the end for Hamas," Netanyahu said.
"I say to the terrorists of Hamas - this is the end. Surrender now," added the Israeli prime minister.
The Palestinian movement Hamas warned earlier today that none of the hostages abducted during the October 7 attack and still being held in the Gaza Strip will leave "alive" without negotiations and "without answers to their demands".
Meanwhile, the Hamas health ministry announced a new death toll - 17.997 dead in Gaza.
(BETA)
The Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) adopted today by consensus a resolution calling for urgent humanitarian aid for Gaza.
While the United Nations Security Council failed to call for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas due to a US veto, all 34 member states of the WHO Executive Board called for "immediate, sustainable and unhindered passage of humanitarian aid" in the Gaza Strip.
The resolution, proposed by Afghanistan, Morocco, Qatar and Yemen, calls for the issuance of exit permits to patients, the provision of medicines and medical equipment for civilians and the provision of access to medical care for all those deprived of their liberty.
The 34-nation resolution of the WHO Executive Board also expresses "serious concern" over the humanitarian situation and "widespread destruction" and calls for the protection of all civilians.
(BETA)
A senior politician in the Lebanese group Hezbollah said today that Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon marked a "new escalation" to which the group is responding with new types of attacks, Reuters reports.
Hassan Fadlallah said in a statement sent to Reuters that the escalation "will not deter the resistance in Lebanon from continuing to defend their country and support Gaza."
Hezbollah was responding to the escalation with new types of attacks, whether it was "the nature of the weapons (used) or the locations targeted," he added.
About 18.000 Palestinians have been killed and 49.500 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, the spokesperson of the Gaza Ministry of Health said today, according to Reuters.
The spokesman, Ashraf Al-Kidra, also told Al Jazeera television in a telephone interview that 24 people had been killed and more than 297 wounded in the past 550 hours.
The armed wing of Hamas said today that Israel will not be able to return any of its hostages unless it engages in negotiations on conditional exchange agreements, Reuters reports.
Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, said in an audio speech broadcast by Al Jazeera television that Israel would not be able to retrieve the captives by force, citing what he described as a failed operation to free one of them.
He also claimed that Hamas fighters had partially or completely destroyed 180 Israeli transport vehicles, tanks and bulldozers in the 10 days since fighting resumed in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said it was "imperative" that Israeli military operations in Gaza protect Palestinian civilians, adding that the fighting should be accompanied by lasting peace leading to a Palestinian state, Reuters reports.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said today that the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has "catastrophic" health consequences.
The WHO convened a special session on health conditions in the Palestinian territories and its head said the health system there had collapsed and doctors were facing an impossible job.
"The health consequences of the conflict are catastrophic and health workers are doing their best in unimaginable conditions," said Gabrejesus, WHO Secretary-General, at the opening of the meeting in Geneva.
He warned that as more and more people are moved into ever smaller territories, overcrowding, along with a lack of adequate food, water, shelter and sanitation, creates ideal conditions for the spread of disease.
Gabrejesus mentioned the worrisome signs of disease epidemics which, it seems, will worsen with the worsening of the situation and the arrival of winter.
"Gaza's health system is on its knees and collapsing," the WHO chief said, adding that only 14 of the 36 hospitals are operating at part capacity, and two of those facilities are located in the north of the coastal area.
There are now only 1.400 of the 3.500 hospital beds there were before the war, and the two main hospitals in the south of the Gaza Strip can use a third of their original bed capacity, they remain out of stock and have sheltered thousands of displaced people.
(BETA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left today's session of the Government of Israel early and spoke for fifty minutes with the President of Russia Vladimir Putni, his spokesman told the Israeli media, reports the Beta agency.
The phone call comes at a time of strained relations with Russia over its staunch anti-Israel stance in the war against Palestinian Hamas and as Russia's ambassador to the UN criticized Israel at a UN Security Council meeting on Friday.
In the conversation with Putin, Netanyahu also expressed his "strong disapproval" of Russia's "dangerous" cooperation with Iran, according to an Israeli statement, Reuters reports.
The spokesman of the Israeli government rejected today as "outrageous and false" the allegations of Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi that Israel implemented a systematic policy of pushing Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip during the war there, reports Reuters.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said today that it is not acceptable for Israel to use the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7 as a justification for collective punishment of the Palestinian people and called for international monitoring on the ground in Gaza, reports Reuters.
Israeli tanks pushed their way into the center of Khan Yunis on Sunday in a major new assault on the heart of the capital in the southern Gaza Strip.
President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly blamed the war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas for the failure of years of US diplomacy in the Middle East, while seeking to position Russia as an important player with ties to all major players in the region.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced today that it had carried out a series of airstrikes against extremist Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon, in response to repeated attacks on Israel's northern border.
As stated, the targets are places from where rockets are fired, military installations and other infrastructure belonging to that pro-Iranian Shiite organization, Israeli media reported.
Several Israeli soldiers were wounded today by shrapnel in a Hezbollah drone attack on a military base in the Western Galilee area, Israeli media reported.
Two drones launched from Lebanon were shot down by the Iron Dome anti-aircraft system, and Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack.
Clashes between the Israeli army and Hezbollah on the Israeli-Lebanese border began on the second day of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas, an ally of the organization.
Israel's National Security Adviser Chahi Hanegbi hinted last night that the Israeli army could go to war with Hezbollah after the victory over Hamas in Gaza.
Israeli officials have long been concerned about the arsenal of rockets at Hezbollah's disposal, and after the attack by Hamas on the south of Israel on October 7, there was an increased fear that units of that Lebanese organization could attempt a similar deadly invasion in the north.
(BETA)
During the recent truce in the war between Israel and Hamas, 900.000 banknotes, totaling 180 million shekels (about 42 million euros), were secretly transferred from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, the Financial Times reported.
Banknotes of 200 shekels ($54) each, weighing almost a ton, were transported in a convoy of vehicles in late November.
This unusual mission was supported by the UN with strong security and Israel knew about it.
The banknotes were collected from two branches of the Bank of Palestine in northern Gaza, and the transfer allowed the six ATMs still operating in the south and central part of the Strip to dispense cash.
The goal of the mission was to transfer money to ease the suffering of the people of Gaza and ease the economic situation that is heavily dependent on cash.
Before the start of the war, according to UN data, 81 percent of Gazans lived in poverty and relied on international economic aid.
Since the war began and before the ceasefire, banknotes were missing in the south of the Gaza Strip, electronic transfers were rare and inflation was rampant, writes the British newspaper.
The report added that during the ceasefire, some bank branches in southern Gaza were open to provide emergency services.
The Palestinian Authority, which controls parts of the other Palestinian territory of the occupied West Bank, has instructed banks to provide loans to employees whose wages have been cut or delayed, and a request to offer emergency financing to companies and delay repayments to lenders.
(BETA)
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced today that, for the first time since the beginning of the ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, artillery units are operating inside the Palestinian territory.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7, artillery has fired more than 10.000 shells at targets in Gaza from the border area.
According to the IDF, artillery fire has been used to help ground forces maneuver in Gaza since October 27 when the ground offensive began.
In the past few days, the 282nd Artillery Regiment of the 411th Battalion crossed the border with M-109 howitzers to assist the 188th Armored Brigade in the offensive in the Shejaia neighborhood of Gaza City, Israeli media reported.
Soldiers gutted more than 20 buildings in the neighborhood, including weapons depots, bomb shelters and other Hamas infrastructure, while also assisting ground forces with flares and smoke grenades.
Meanwhile, missile warning sirens sounded in border settlements in the south of Israel near the Gaza Strip after a lull of about twenty hours.
(BETA)
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected international calls to end the war in Gaza, describing them as inconsistent with supporting the war's goal of eliminating Hamas, Radio Free Europe reports.
At a meeting of his war cabinet, Netanyahu said that he told the leaders of France, Germany and other countries: "You cannot support the elimination of Hamas on the one hand, and on the other hand put pressure on us to end the war, which would prevent the elimination of Hamas."
Israel's leader on Saturday said he appreciated the US veto in the UN Security Council, blocking a request for a ceasefire in the war against Hamas in Gaza.
He said Israel would continue the war "to eliminate Hamas and achieve the other goals of the war that we have set."
The United States should also be held responsible for Israel's attacks on Gaza, Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayeh said, Radio Free Europe reports.
Stajeh was speaking at the Doha Forum conference in Qatar on Sunday when he condemned the US.
His comments come a day after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the US veto of a draft UN Security Council resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza made him "complicit" in what he said were war crimes against Palestinians.
The US vetoed the UN resolution despite the proposal being supported by almost all members of the Security Council.
Dozens of other countries have also expressed support for an immediate end to the conflict, leaving Washington diplomatically isolated on the international stage.
Mediation to reach a truce in the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip is continuing despite continued Israeli attacks that "reduce the possibility" of a positive outcome, Qatar's prime minister said today.
"Our efforts that the State of Qatar is making together with its partners continue. We are not giving up on them," Mohamed ben Abdelrahman al-Tani said at the forum in Doha.
He indicated that "the continuation of the bombing reduces the possibilities".
(BETA)
The Secretary General of the United Nations (UN) Antonio Guterres said that he will not give up his appeal for a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, stating that the conflict has damaged the credibility and authority of the UN Security Council.
Guterres made the statement during a forum in Doha after the United States vetoed a draft resolution in the UN Security Council at the end of the week calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
"I am asking the UN Security Council to exert pressure in order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and I repeat the appeal for the declaration of a humanitarian ceasefire. Unfortunately, the Council did not succeed in this, but that does not mean that it is not necessary. I will not give up the appeal," said Guterres.
(Radio Free Europe)
The Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamic organization Hamas clashed fiercely today in the southern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of civilians are desperately trying to protect themselves from the war.
Early this morning, an Israeli plane carried out strikes near Khan Younis and on the road between that city and Rafah near the border with Egypt, the Hamas government announced.
A few hours later, a source close to the military wings of Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced that members of those two organizations were participating in the clashes around Khan Yunis.
The Israeli army announced that it has stepped up its operations in the southern Gaza Strip.
Israel's Chief of Staff, Herzi Halevi, said that the pressure must be "increased" and that many members of Hamas had been killed.
At the very beginning of the ground offensive, at the end of October, the Israeli army ordered the inhabitants of the northern part of the Gaza Strip to go south.
With the intensification of the conflict in the south and after the American veto in the UN Security Council on the resolution proposing a cease-fire, the fear for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip, especially in the south, is growing.
A large part of Gaza's 1,9 million inhabitants who fled the conflict and the bombs have been forced into Rafah, which has been turned into a huge refugee camp.
Diseases are spreading due to overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions in the UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA) shelters in the south of the territory.
UNICEF Middle East Director Adela Khodr said that nearly a million children have been forcibly displaced and are being pushed further south into small areas without water, food and protection.
Restrictions on aid delivery are an additional death sentence for children, she warned.
According to the data of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, the number of dead since the beginning of the war has exceeded 17.700, and the majority are women and children.
As Israeli officials have pointed out, the goal of the war is the destruction of Hamas, which Israel, the US and the EU consider a terrorist organization.
The war began after the sudden attacks of Palestinian extremists, led by Hamas, on October 7 in the south of Israel, in which more than 1.200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and about 240 hostages were taken.
The Israeli military said 137 hostages were still being held in Gaza.
(BETA)
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