Hamas offers stiff resistance to invading Israeli forces, Netanyahu under pressure from families of captives
\nGAZA
\nIsraeli forces carried out relentless and horrific airstrikes on Bureji refugee camp once again targeting displaced Palestinians who had taken shelter in the area after their neighbourhoods were all but destroyed in earlier strikes, reported Al Jazeera.
\nThe concentration of air and artillery strikes in the central part of the besieged enclave, after the northern region was completely destroyed, lends credence to the narrative that the real goal of the Israeli government is to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable for the Palestinian people.
\nIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted peace can only be achieved in Gaza if Hamas is destroyed, the territory demilitarised and Palestinian society \u201cderadicalised\u201d, after warning the war is set to intensify.
\nThe right-wing Israeli premier\u2019s statement comes at a time when at least 20,674 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in a brutal military campaign.
\nThe declarations came as the World Health Organization on Monday reported \u201charrowing\u201d accounts of entire families killed from Christmas Eve strikes on a refugee camp in Gaza.
\nRelentless Israeli strikes have devastated the Palestinian territory and the conflict has heightened tensions across the Middle East, with global pressure for a ceasefire mounting.
\nBut in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday night, Netanyahu vowed to stay the course.
\n\u201cHamas 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,\u201d Netanyahu said.
\nHe said demilitarisation \u201cwill require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter\u201d of the territory \u201cFor the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza,\u201d he said.
\nEarlier on Monday Netanyahu visited Gaza, telling a meeting of his Likud party after his return: \u201cWe\u2019re not stopping\u201d. \u201cWe\u2019re intensifying the fighting in the coming days,\u201d he said, according to a party statement.
\nOn Monday, some residents of Al-Maghazi refugee camp returned to the ruins of their homes after strikes the previous day that Gaza\u2019s health ministry said killed at least 70 people.
\nZeyad Awad said there was no evacuation warning before the strikes. \u201cWhat should we do? We are civilians, living peacefully and wanting only safety and security,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cYet we are suddenly struck by Israeli warplanes without any warning.\u201d
\nWHO staff visited a hospital treating victims of the Al-Maghazi strikes. The \u201cteam heard harrowing accounts shared by health workers and victims\u201d, the UN health agency\u2019s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on social media.
\n\u201cOne child had lost their whole family in the strike on the camp. A nurse at the hospital suffered the same loss,\u201d he added.
\nSean 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.
\n\u201cHe was crossing the street in front of the shelter where his family is staying and the building beside him blew up,\u201d he said.
\nThe Israeli army said it was \u201creviewing the incident\u201d, adding it was \u201ccommitted to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians\u201d.
\nDespite what the IDF claims, the force has intentionally targeted civilians and has also summarily executed entire families – a clear war crime under international law.
\nVast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people are enduring dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.
\nGrasping empty containers, dozens of Gazans waited on a street in Rafah, in southern Gaza, for food to be distributed.
\n\u201cNow there is real hunger. My children are dying of hunger,\u201d said one of them, Nour Ismail.
\nAn 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hamas offers stiff resistance to invading Israeli forces, Netanyahu under pressure from families of captives GAZA Israeli forces carried out relentless and horrific airstrikes on Bureji refugee camp once again targeting displaced Palestinians who had taken shelter in the area after their neighbourhoods were all but destroyed in earlier strikes, reported Al Jazeera. The concentration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377005,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-376980","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n