IDF forces eliminated five commanders and officers from the Northern Gaza Strip Brigade, Hamas’ second largest brigadewho were hiding in a tunnel located near the Indonesian hospital during the attack.” These are Asam Abu Rakba, Rafat Salman, Ahmed Al-Ghandoor, Wael Rajab and Ibrahim Al-Biari.
Furthermore, the IDF writes, “four battalion commanders were eliminated in the Gaza Brigade, Hamas’ largest, and the Tsabra battalion was significantly damaged and its headquarters put out of action.”
Israel has revoked the visa of UN humanitarian coordinator Lynn Hastings. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Eli Cohen, announced it on X. “We will no longer remain silent in the face of UN bias,” he wrote in a post.
In detail, according to Minister Lynn Hastings, who is deputy special coordinator for the Middle East peace process and resident coordinator of the United Nations for the occupied Palestinian territories, she did not speak out against Hamas for the acts committed during the attack on 7 October.
Apocalypse in Gaza: the point
Fighting is raging in Gaza, among the heaviest in the two months of war with Hamas. Israeli army troops surrounded the city of Khan Younis, to dismantle the Hamas command center in the south of the Strip; and according to Israel, some soldiers are already in the heart of the city which is the largest in the southern sector and where some of the 138 hostages still in the hands of the Islamists could be hidden. Meanwhile, the Israeli air force has hit around 250 targets in the enclave in the last 24 hours and the military – the army says – continues to locate and destroy weapons, underground wells, tunnels and explosive devices. Among the targets attacked, the military spokesman said, were the rocket launchers used on Tuesday to fire a series of projectiles towards central Israel.
Israeli troops have begun the third phase of their offensive in Gaza, which will focus on the southern area of the enclave, in several locations they consider key Hamas strongholds. And so the evacuation of inhabitants to other parts of the enclave continues. On foot, on motorbikes, crammed into carts or with luggage piled on the roofs of their cars, thousands of civilians continue to flee towards the South, surrounded in an increasingly narrow perimeter near the closed border with Egypt and faced with a catastrophic humanitarian. The images that come from inside are chilling. The UN humanitarian aid chief said the Israeli military campaign is creating “apocalyptic” conditions and effectively ends any possibility of meaningful humanitarian operations. Martin Griffiths, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator, said he speaks for the entire international humanitarian community when he says the offensive deprives aid workers of any meaningful means to help Gaza’s 2.3 million people . «What we say today is: enough is enough. It must stop”, because aid is now impossible.
According to Hamas, 16,248 people have died since the start of the war, more than 70% of them women, children and adolescents. And there’s no sign of a glimmer of hope afterwards. US President Joe Biden has once again expressed his desire to see the creation of a Palestinian state. But Netanyahu said Gaza must remain demilitarized, rejected the idea of an international force ensuring security in the enclave and said the only body capable of ensuring it would be the Israeli army. Today Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi had a conversation with Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
MSF, Al-Aqsa hospital is running out of medical supplies
The availability of fuel and medical supplies has reached critical levels at Al-Aqsa hospital in the Gaza Strip due to road closures, while hundreds of patients require emergency care due to incessant Israeli shelling. This was announced in a statement by Doctors Without Borders (MSF), underlining that the Palestinian and international MSF staff in the hospital have received on average 150-200 war wounded per day since the beginning of December.
“There are 700 hospitalized patients and new ones are always arriving. We are running out of essential supplies to treat them”, says Marie-Aure Perreaut Revial, MSF emergency coordinator in Gaza. “The shortage of medicines and fuel could prevent the hospital from providing life-saving surgeries or intensive care. Without electricity, ventilators would no longer work, blood donations would be interrupted and the sterilization of surgical instruments would be impossible – continues Perreaut Revial -. It is essential to facilitate the supply of humanitarian materials.
The hospital urgently needs surgical sets, external fixators for fractures and essential medicines, including those for chronic diseases.”
Former hostage girl returns to kindergarten, her classmates hug her
A moving video was released by the Israeli Ministry of Education and shows Emilia, a 5-year-old girl returning to school after being freed with her mother Danielle during the hostage exchange. Her little girl is hugged and comforted by her little schoolmates who are waiting for her on the school stairs.
Danielle and Emilia were abducted on October 7 while visiting family on Kibbutz Nir Oz. In the video, also filmed by the BBC, the little girl is seen crossing the gates of the nursery school before being surrounded by friends who welcome her and tell her that they had missed her.