International and domestic pressure on Netanyahu is growing, and new protests against his government are expected in Israel today. and to ask for an agreement that would allow the release of the hostages. On the contrary, the prime minister believes that increasing “military pressure” on Hamas is a way to “promote” an agreement for the release of the hostages.
As the war rages, Netanyahu will travel to Washington on Monday, meet with President Biden (who according to the New York Times has even postponed a plan to withdraw his candidacy to receive the Israeli head of government in full function), and will speak to the American Congress on Wednesday. All this provided he recovers from Covid. On Friday, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, had reiterated America’s determination to reach a ceasefire agreement. But this “is not enough”, he said, it is “essential to ensure that we have a plan” for the post-war period in Gaza, “for governance, security, humanitarian aid, reconstruction”.
Washington has repeatedly stressed its commitment to a two-state solution, a Palestinian-Israeli resolution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even after the Israeli parliament adopted a resolution opposing the creation of a Palestinian state whose authority would extend beyond the West Bank and Gaza.
On Israel’s northern front, in Lebanon, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, has announced that it has launched new rockets into northern Israel “in response” to an Israeli attack that injured four civilians, a woman and her three children. The war continues and the northern front seems to be the most worrying at the moment.
Israel’s military offensive on the Gaza Strip continues just days after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington to meet President Joe Biden. At least 24 people were killed in attacks by Jewish state forces today, according to emergency services in the Palestinian territory, devastated by more than nine months of war between Israel and Hamas. The Palestinian Islamic movement saw these attacks as Israel’s “response” to the opinion issued the day before by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that deemed the occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967 “unlawful”. A decision described as “historic” by the Palestinians and “false” by Israel.
The Israeli army today claimed to have “eliminated terrorists” through attacks and fighting in the Strip. In a statement released today, the IDF said it had killed about 150 militants throughout the week, as well as destroyed about 100 infrastructures used by them. A strike also hit the Nousseirat camp (in the center of the Strip) today, killing two women and a child, an official at al-Awda Hospital said. He also said it had treated four children who were injured while playing on the roof of their house after an Israeli drone strike in Al-Bureij.