War in the Middle East: Fierce fighting continues in southern Gaza

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s army has now killed around half of all battalion commanders of the Islamist Hamas in the Gaza Strip. He said this at a press conference. Hamas is gradually losing control of the sealed-off coastal strip, added its Defense Minister Joav Galant.

The army previously announced that it had now advanced “into the heart” of Khan Yunis, the largest city in the south of the Gaza Strip. At the request of the army, hundreds of thousands of people seeking protection fled from the previously fiercely contested north to the south of the area.

Israel’s army continues bombardment

The Israeli army has continued its bombardment of targets in the Gaza Strip. The army said on Wednesday morning that around 250 “terrorist targets” had been attacked over the past day. The troops are still in the process of locating weapons, tunnel shafts, explosives and other military infrastructure. A combat aircraft, in conjunction with ground troops, hit two rocket launchers from which terrorists fired a barrage of rockets into the center of Israel.

In further attacks, terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were eliminated and a number of terrorist infrastructures were destroyed, the army said. The troops also attacked a “terror cell” that was operating near a school in the northern Gaza Strip. A tunnel shaft was then blown up there. Weapons and ammunition were found in another school in the north.

Doctors Without Borders: Hospital in Gaza Strip running out of supplies

The aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) is calling for an end to the siege of the Gaza Strip. In the Al-Aqsa Hospital in the center of the area, supplies of fuel and medical supplies are now at a critical level, the organization said on Wednesday on the short message service X (formerly Twitter). The reason for this is road closures. “The siege must be lifted and medical supplies must be urgently delivered throughout the Gaza Strip,” the organization said.

Since fighting resumed on December 1, an average of 150 to 200 people with war injuries have come to the hospital every day, according to MSF. “There are currently 700 patients in the hospital, with new ones coming all the time. We are running out of basic supplies to treat them,” emergency coordinator Marie-Aure Perreaut Revial ​​said, according to the statement.

Report: USA expects ground offensive by January

According to a media report, the US government assumes that Israel’s massive ground offensive in the south will continue until January. As the US broadcaster CNN reported, citing several senior US government officials, Israel could move in a few weeks to a “less intense, more localized strategy” targeting specific Hamas terrorists and leaders.

The White House is “deeply concerned” about how Israeli operations will develop in the next few weeks, an official was quoted as saying. World public opinion is increasingly turning against the current ground offensive, in which thousands of civilians are being killed, the broadcaster reported.

USA: entry restrictions for extremist settlers

The growing tensions in the West Bank are also a cause for concern. In response, the US government is issuing entry restrictions that are aimed, among other things, at extremist Israeli settlers. There has been an alarming increase in violence, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said on Tuesday.

During the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel conquered, among other things, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Around 600,000 Israelis live there today in more than 200 settlements. The Palestinians claim the areas as part of their own state. The UN Security Council in 2016 called these settlements a violation of international law and called on Israel to stop all settlement activities.

USA: Israel must let more aid into Gaza

Meanwhile, Miller sent words of warning to Israel in the Gaza war. Efforts must be made to provide more aid supplies for the Gaza Strip. “Not enough is being done right now,” Miller said Tuesday evening. The number of trucks currently arriving is around 100 per day. The number is lower than during the ceasefire that expired last Friday, Miller also explained. “It has to be higher.”

The UN human rights office complained that Israeli attacks that targeted or affected civilian infrastructure “raise serious concerns about compliance with international humanitarian law and significantly increase the risk of atrocities,” according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry More than 16,200 people have now been killed in Gaza. This cannot currently be independently verified, but the UN and observers point out that the authority’s figures have proven to be overall credible in the past.

Israel: We will not forget

Meanwhile, Israel’s leadership remains relentless: “We will not forget and we will not forgive,” said Netanyahu. The Gaza war was triggered by the worst massacre in Israel’s history, carried out by terrorists from the Islamist Hamas and other terrorist groups on October 7th in Israel near the border with the Gaza Strip. More than 1,200 people were killed. According to the latest information from the Israeli army, 138 hostages are currently still being held by Hamas and other extremist groups.

In the end, Defense Minister Galant predicted that there would no longer be a single Hamas battalion in the Gaza Strip that could pose a threat to Israel. The Israeli army assumes that the terrorist organization has a total of 24 of these military departments, each with around 1,000 members. The information could not be independently verified.

Biden condemns Hamas sexual violence

Netanyahu, meanwhile, criticized human rights organizations and the UN for not speaking out about Hamas’ sexual crimes against women. US President Joe Biden condemned Hamas’ sexual violence. In recent weeks, survivors and witnesses of the October 7 attacks have described “horrifying accounts of unimaginable atrocities,” Biden said.

Hamas now understands that no one is saving them, neither the Iranians nor the Lebanese Hezbollah militia, Galant said. According to Lebanese information, several people were injured and one dead in renewed shelling on the border between Lebanon and Israel on Tuesday. The Lebanese army said at least one soldier was killed in an Israeli attack on a military site in the border area. He is the first Lebanese soldier to die in the current conflict. Three others were injured.