The war between Israel and Hamas entered its 100th day yesterday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “no one will stop us” from destroying the militant group.
The conflict has triggered a humanitarian crisis, with more than 23,000 people reported killed in Gaza and much of the besieged Palestinian territory reduced to rubble, as fears grow that fighting could engulf the wider region.
Fresh strikes hit Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen on Saturday after the rebels warned of more attacks in support of Gaza on what they consider Israeli-linked Red Sea shipping.
Photo: AFP
The US Central Command said its forces hit a Houthi radar site, a day after the first strikes by US and British forces on rebel sites in Yemen.
The war in Gaza was triggered on Oct. 7 last year, when Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack from the Gaza Strip that resulted in about 1,140 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians.
Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the US and the EU, also seized about 250 hostages, 132 of whom Israel said remain in Gaza, including at least 25 believed to have been killed.
Israel vowed to destroy Gaza’s rulers and launched a relentless bombardment that has killed at least 23,843 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll from the territory’s health ministry.
After the Hague, Netherlands-based International Court of Justice heard arguments this week that accused Israel of breaching the UN Genocide Convention, Netanyahu said no court or military foe could stop Israel from achieving its aim of destroying Hamas.
“No one will stop us — not The Hague, not the axis of evil and no one else,” he told a televised news conference on Saturday, referring to the Iran-aligned “axis of resistance” groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
“It is possible and necessary to continue until victory, and we will do it,” he added, saying most Hamas battalions in Gaza had been “eliminated.”
Netanyahu is under growing domestic pressure to bring home hostages who have now been held in Gaza for 100 days, with thousands rallying in Tel Aviv to call for their release.
“We will continue to come here week after week until everybody is released,” Edan Begerano, 47, said.
Health officials in Gaza on Saturday said Israeli strikes killed at least 60 people in the besieged territory.
Nimma al-Akhras, 80, described one of the strikes that destroyed her home.
“We started to scream and I couldn’t move, but someone pulled me out and put me on a cart,” she said.
The Israeli military said it struck dozens of rocket launchers that were “ready to be used” in central Gaza and eliminated four “terrorists” in airstrikes on Khan Yunis, Gaza’s main southern city.
It also reported that its engineers had destroyed a Hamas “command center” in central Gaza.
Mourners gathered at Rafah’s al-Najjar hospital and prayed around the bodies of slain relatives. One man, Bassem Araf, held up a photo of a child.
“She died hungry with bread in her hand. We tried to remove the bread from her hand but it was held tight,” Araf said. “This is the resistance they are targeting in Gaza, just children.”
An Israeli siege has sparked acute shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel in Gaza, where the health system is collapsing.
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees head Philippe Lazzarini on Saturday during a visit to the Gaza Strip said: “The massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss and grief of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity.”
He said an entire generation of children in Gaza were being “traumatised,” diseases were spreading and the clock was “ticking fast towards famine.”
Winter rains have exacerbated the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, where the UN estimates 1.9 million — about 85 percent of the population — have been displaced.
Many have sought shelter in Rafah and other southern areas where the health ministry said there is not the infrastructure to support them.
Gaza’s health ministry spokesman said Israel was “deliberately targeting hospitals ... to put them out of service,” warning of “devastating repercussions.”
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