Today marks three months since Hamas' surprise attack against the Israeli towns closest to Gaza, which left more than a thousand Israelis murdered. 129 hostages remain held captive by Hamas in the strip, according to data from the Israeli Government. And there have also been more than 90 days of war in the Palestinian enclave and the dead are close to reaching 23,000, according to data from the Gaza Ministry of Health. The majority are children and women, criticizes the UN.
Hamas leaders, however, remain unaccounted for, although late yesterday Israeli Defense Forces spokesman Daniel Hagari said they have "completely dismantled" the Islamist group's military capacity in the north of the strip.
Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu also reiterated yesterday, therefore, that the offensive on Gaza will continue until we achieve "all the objectives." Eliminating Hamas, freeing the hostages and ensuring that Gaza is never again a threat to Israel are the goals that have been repeated and repeated insistently since the beginning of the offensive.
The offensive is now focused on the center and south of the strip, where Israeli forces believe Hamas leaders are hiding. But the complexity of the task is reflected by the fact that the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, on his tour of the Middle East to try to de-escalate the conflict – as done by Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Politics Foreign – seek Turkey's support in the fight against the Islamist organization.
Blinken, further, repeats that the border between Lebanon and Israel, where hostilities between the Israeli Army and Hizbullah militants are increasing, is a point of “real concern.” The war drums for the region are being beaten here. And in the West Bank it is no less. Since the attack on October 7, more than 300 Palestinians have been killed, clashes are almost daily and early this Sunday the news of the death of a 30-year-old Israeli young man in an alleged weapons attack in Ofra was known. , north of Ramallah, the de facto Palestinian capital. And also this morning it was known that at least six Palestinians had died in Jenin, in the northern West Bank, after a new Israeli incursion.
Tensions in Netanyahu's war cabinet, however, are increasing. Benny Gantz, a central part of it and the favorite for the electorate in the latest polls published in the country, demands the premier choose “between unity or politics” after the latest attacks by members of the conservative government on the role of Israeli forces in Gaza , the controversies about the strategy to follow and the plan for the post-Hamas time. Yesterday there were demonstrations again in Israel calling for early elections.
