Location at a glance: Netanyahu announces Gaza offensive “in the coming days”

The needy civilian population in the Gaza Strip must adapt to a new large -scale offensive of Israel to destroy the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas. The mission should begin “in the coming days”, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced yesterday. The aim is to completely defeat Hamas and to free the remaining hostages in their violence. UN-NOTILFEKOORDINATER TOM FLETCHER criticized Israel’s handling of the coastal area, which was sealed outwards, and warned of a “genocide”.

A new military offensive is likely to further tighten the emergency of people in the densely populated and after more than one and a half years of war. Fletcher warned that 2.1 million Palestinians have already been threatened by starvation due to the recurred humanitarian aid. “Israel consciously and shamelessly creates inhuman conditions for the civilian population in the occupied Palestinian areas,” he said before the UN Security Council at a meeting in New York.

“What are you still needing now?” Asked Fletcher in the round of the most powerful UN committee. “Will you act determined to prevent genocide and to ensure compliance with humanitarian international law? Or will you say instead:” We did everything we could “?”

France’s President Emmanuel Macron also criticized. “What the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is currently doing is unacceptable,” he said in the station TF1. Humanitarian aid from France and other countries for the population in Gaza are blocked by Israel. The humanitarian crisis is devastating, there is no water and no medication. Macron spoke of a shame.

According to a spokeswoman, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also emphasized the urgency at a meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem to “ensure the access of the population in Gaza to humanitarian aid”.

Netanyahu: We go in the Gaza War “to the end”

Netanyahu said at a meeting with wounded reservists, the destruction of Hamas and the liberation of the hostages captured in the Gaza Strip were inseparable. “In the coming days we will go into full strength to complete the campaign,” he promised. Even if Hamas offers to released more hostages, Israel will not end the war. A temporary ceasefire is possible, but not a permanent end to the fights.

The army had recently started mobilizing tens of thousands of reservists. However, Israeli media reported that the end of the three-day visit by US President Donald Trump should be awaited in the Golf region, which began in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday and provides for further stops in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

He assumes that more than half of the population would leave the Gaza Strip if there were appropriate exit options, Netanyahu said. Israel is currently working on winning third countries for the admission of people. Many Palestinians fear a new wave of flight and displacement from the Gaza Strip, similar to during the war in the course of the foundation of the Israeli in 1948 and during the 1967 six days.

More Gaza negotiations in Qatar

The indirect conversations between Israel and Hamas conveyed by the United States, Egypt and Qatar stalled a few months ago. According to media reports, a team of Israeli negotiations in Katar’s capital Doha has now landed a new round of negotiations. It is therefore planned that the US specialist Steve Witkoff and Trump’s hostage representative Adam Boehler will also take part in the talks.

Netanyahu had announced that the negotiations should be “under fire”. The Islamist organization rejects a disarmament of Hamas required by Israel. As a condition for an release of the remaining hostages, it calls for a complete end of the Gaza War.

Air strikes on clinics in Gaza

Meanwhile, the bloodshed in Gaza continues. During the night, Palestinian sources reported an Israeli air raid on Jabalija, where there are said to have been dozens of victims. Previously, air strikes on two hospitals in the south of the area had killed at least 19 people according to clinic information. According to the Israeli army, it was a targeted attack on Hamas terrorists – the military has long been accusing the Islamists to abuse hospitals for terrorist purposes. A Hamas spokesman rejected this presentation. The information on both sides could not be checked independently.

The focus was particularly on a suspected attack on Mohammed al-Sinwar, the younger brother of the Hamas manager Jihia al-Sinwar, who was killed in October 2024. It was initially unclear whether he was among the dead in the attack on the European Hospital in Chan Junis. After killing the Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif in July last year by the Israeli military, Mohammed al-Sinwar took over the management of the armed Hamas arm, the Kassam brigades.

If he is dead now, it could make it easier to communicate on a ceasefire and an agreement to release the hostages, said an Israeli government official of the “Jerusalem Post”. Al-Sinwar was the most extreme player on the side of Hamas when it comes to their negotiating position. “If he is no longer there, this should be beneficial to the efforts for an agreement.”

The Israeli attack on the Nasser Hospital in Chan Junis in the night of Tuesday was also based on the military Hamas terrorist. According to the Palestinian information, three people were killed. The Palestinian news agency Wafa spoke of a “targeted attack” on the Palestinian journalist Hassan Eslaiah, which was treated for injuries in the clinic.

Eslaiah (other spellings: Aslieh/Aslih) had already been seriously injured in an attack near the Nasser Hospital last month. Back then, Israel’s army said that the Palestinian took part in the Hamas massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023. He had penetrated in the Israeli area and also made pictures of murders, arson and looting and published on social media. As a freelance journalist, he delivered photos of the AP news agency, of which a few in October 2023 also entered the DPA image radio.

New rocket attacks on Israel

For the first time in a long time, missiles were fired from the Gaza Strip again in Israeli territory. According to the military, two floors were intercepted, a third hit in open terrain. In addition, the Israeli army according to its own information started again a rocket fired from Yemen. The Islamists of the Huthi militia with the Hamas allied that the aim of their attack was the airport of the Tel Aviv coastal metropolis.

The attack occurred during the visit of Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Israel. Steinmeier, his wife Elke Büdenbender and parts of the delegation, were brought into the air -raid shelter of her hotel. They spent about 15 minutes there. At the time of the attack, the guests from Germany wanted to break up in the residence of Israel’s President Izchak Herzog for dinner, which they then did late.