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Israeli air strikes pummeled Gaza for a fifth day, killing practically 100 Palestinians, at the same time as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to proceed participating in negotiations to finish the warfare with Hamas.
The brand new offensive, which started on Tuesday with the tried assassination of Hamas’s Gaza chief, has been authorised by Netanyahu’s far-right safety cupboard to occupy many of the enclave and pressure its 2.1mn civilians into a few tenth of the territory close to the Egypt border.
However Netanyahu has additionally solid the army operations as a part of a brand new tactic of “negotiations below hearth”, which threatens Hamas with everlasting lack of territory until the militant group yields to the stress by releasing Israeli hostages with out a everlasting truce.
“Even presently, the negotiating crew in Doha is working to exhaust each likelihood of a deal — whether or not in keeping with [a US] proposal or throughout the framework of ending the combating, which would come with the discharge of all hostages, the exile of Hamas terrorists, and the demilitarisation of the strip,” Netanyahu’s workplace mentioned in an announcement on Sunday morning.
The Israeli army has killed tons of of Palestinians since launching Operation Gideon’s Chariots this week, together with a minimum of 350 prior to now three days, in keeping with native well being officers. By midday on Sunday, the our bodies of 96 individuals had been dropped at Gaza’s few functioning hospitals, in keeping with a preliminary depend by the ministry of well being.
It has additionally blocked meals, medication and recent water from coming into Gaza for greater than two and a half months. A whole lot of 1000’s of Palestinians are already ravenous, a UN panel mentioned earlier this week.
Israel has but to substantiate whether or not its strikes on the European Hospital on Tuesday killed the supposed goal Mohammad Sinwar, who took over the reins of the militant group after Israel killed his brother Yahya Sinwar, the longtime Hamas chief who orchestrated the October 7 cross-border raids.
However two Saudi information retailers on Sunday reported that Sinwar had been killed within the strike. Defence minister Israel Katz had equally briefed native officers, Israeli media reported. Sinwar’s different brother, a professor at an area college, was additionally killed in a single day, in keeping with a demise discover shared in Gaza.
Israel stepped up the depth of its air strikes earlier this week as US President Donald Trump wrapped up his Gulf tour.
Israeli officers had earlier referred to his journey as a “window of alternative” to dealer a swap of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners that will be acceptable to Netanyahu and his far-right allies. Within the occasion, Trump negotiated the discharge of a single Israeli soldier, who can also be an American nationwide.
An estimated 20 hostages and the our bodies of as many as 38 extra are nonetheless being held by Hamas, which has refused to launch them with out a full ceasefire and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Greater than 53,000 Palestinians have been killed for the reason that warfare started, most of them ladies and kids, in keeping with native well being officers.
At the least 1,200 individuals had been killed in Israel in Hamas’s cross-border assault on October 7 2023 and 250 taken hostage, in keeping with Israeli officers.
