Herzog at Davos: Gazan population entrenched in a network of terror, and ’empire of evil’ emanating from Tehran
Graeme Wearden
Graeme Wearden is in Davos for the Guardian, and has been watching an appearance by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog:
Israel’s president has told the Davos conference that there is an “empire of evil” emanating from Tehran which must be faced by a very strong coalition, and that Gaza’s population is entrenched in a network of terror.
Billions of dollars, Isaac Herzog said, are being spent to destabilise the world, with Iran funding proxies all around the region to undermine any peace process.
Herzog began by telling Davos delegates that Israel’s world was shattered on 7 October by the Hamas attacks.
He said Israelis had suffered atrocities including rapes, the chopping of heads, the burning of families. And he cited the example of Kfir Bibas, who turns one in Hamas captivity today after he, his four-year-old brother Ariel and parents, Yarden and Shiri Bibas, were taken hostage.
Herzog said he called on those at Davos, and indeed the “entire universe”, to work endlessly to release all the hostages still held. The oldest hostage was 85 years old, he added, and many were people of peace.
Herzog said he wanted a better future for the Palestinians, who are “our neighbours”.
Since 7 October Palestinian authorities say nearly 25,000 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip, and more than 350 killed over the same period by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of Gaza’s population, are estimated to have been internally displaced since Israel military began ordering evacuations.
If you speak to Israeli citizens, Herzog said, they cannot think about a peace agreement because everyone wants to know if they can be promised security. Every Israeli wants to know they won’t be attacked from the north, south or east, he added.
Herzog said he had been calling for peace with Israel’s neighbours for years, but that terror cannot be accepted, adding it has to be totally stopped and made out of the question.
In its case at the international court of justice against Israel accusing it of committing genocide in Gaza, South Africa cited Herzog as a president “signing bombs destined for Gaza” and “having previously noted that the entire population in Gaza is responsible [for 7 October] and that ‘this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, is absolutely not true … we will fight until we break their backbone’”.
Herzog said at Davos this morning that people who supported Hamas were supporting barbaric terror. He then spoke about the Hamas infrastructure Israel claims to have found in shops, living rooms, bedrooms and schools in Gaza.
He said: “We care, we care, it is painful for us that our neighbours are suffering so much,” adding that they were entrenched in a network of terror, which Israel was determined to remove.
Key events
IDF: ground troops operating in ‘southernmost area’ of Gaza Strip so far
Israel’s military has said it is operating on the ground “in the southernmost area that IDF ground troops have operated in so far”, and says it is has targeted “the ‘Martyrs’ outpost’, belonging to the southern battalion of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade, and the offices of the battalion commander and other Hamas military commanders.”
It claims to have “located numerous weapons and intelligence documents, including dozens of hand grenades, AK-47s, ammunition, excavation equipment, launchers, RPG missiles, explosives, and combat management documents.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Associated Press has some quotes from inside Rafah, from people dealing with the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike which is believed to have killed 16 people, half of them children.
Dr Talat Barhoum at Rafah’s el-Najjar Hospital confirmed the death toll from the strike in Rafah and said dozens more were wounded. Associated Press footage from the hospital showed relatives weeping over the bodies of loved ones.
“They were suffering from hunger, they were dying from hunger, and now they have also been hit,” said Mahmoud Qassim, a relative of some of those who were killed.
Al Jazeera has spoken to Abu Khaled, a relative of those killed in the Rafah attack. He told the news network:
They fled their homes in Gaza City to the Bureij refugee camp to Khan Younis, before coming to Rafah because they thought it was safer. Every day, hundreds of us are killed. If we’re not killed by the bombs, we die from the cold, or starvation, or from disease.
Internet and mobile services continue to be cut off inside the Gaza Strip by Israel. The present outage has lasted for five days, according to internet access advocacy group NetBlocks.
Al Jazeera reports that at least two more Palestinians have been killed inside the Gaza Strip after Israel bombed “the Abasan area, east of Khan Younis”.
Turkey has recommended that Iran and Pakistan do not escalate further, and called for calm to be restored as soon as possible.
Reuters reports that in a press conference in Jordan, Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan said he has held calls with his counterparts from both nations.
Amy Sedghi
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has held his annual briefing in Moscow. During the course of it he was asked about Russia’s assessment of US strikes on Yemen and its support of Israel.
The US and UK “have overstepped and basically trampled into the ground all the norms of international law,” he said.
He compared the situation to Libya in 2011, and said no one had been given the authority to bomb Yemen. Lavrov also suggested that US troops were overstaying their welcome in Iraq.
Summary of the day so far …
It has just gone 12.15pm in Gaza City, Beirut and Tel Aviv, 1.15pm in Damascus, 1.45pm in Tehran and 3.15pm in Islamabad. Here are the headlines across the region …
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Israel’s president has told the Davos conference that there is an “empire of evil” emanating from Tehran which must be faced by a very strong coalition, and that Gaza’s population is entrenched in a network of terror. Billions of dollars, Isaac Herzog said, are being spent to destabilise the world, with Iran funding proxies all around the region to undermine any peace process. Of the situation in Gaza, he said “We care, we care, it is painful for us that our neighbours are suffering so much,” adding that they were entrenched in a network of terror, which Israel was determined to remove.
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Since 7 October Palestinian authorities say nearly 25,000 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip, and more than 350 killed over the same period by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of Gaza’s population, are estimated to have been internally displaced since Israel military began ordering evacuations. The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israel has detained at least another 48 Palestinians overnight and this morning in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
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The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that the death toll from an overnight Israeli airstrike on Rafah in the Gaza Strip has risen to 19. It describes the victims as “mostly children and women”. In its daily operation briefing, Israel military claims to have killed “approximately 60 terrorists” inside the Gaza Strip in the last day.
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Fears are growing that Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, the largest hospital still partly functioning in Gaza, may be forced to close due to Israeli attacks. The aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said Israeli forces had “heavily bombed the area close to the hospital with no prior evacuation order, causing patients and many of the thousands of displaced civilians, who had sought refuge in Nasser, to flee in a panic”.
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Suspected airstrikes by Jordan on southern Syria killed 10 people including children early on Thursday, according to local Syrian media and monitors tracking the conflict.
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Tehran has strongly condemned a strike inside Iran by Pakistan which killed nine people, which Islamabad said was aimed at “terrorists”. A deputy governor of Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province said the dead included three women and four children, and were not Iranian citizens. The strike follows an Iranian attack inside Pakistan the previous day, which Tehran said was aimed at terrorists there. Pakistan said its military was on “extremely” high alert and any more “misadventure” from the Iranian side will be met forcefully. The Baloch Liberation Army, a separatist group, said in a statement that strikes by Pakistan inside Iran had targeted and killed its people.
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The US military has fired another wave of missile strikes against Houthi-controlled sites, marking the fourth time in a week that it has directly targeted the group in Yemen. The strikes were launched from the Red Sea.
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India’s navy said on Thursday that it had responded to a drone attack distress call from a vessel in the Gulf of Aden and that the ship’s crew were safe, with a fire on board under control.
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France’s ambassador to Israel, Frédéric Journès, has said he has hopes that the deal to allow medicine into the Gaza Strip, some of it for hostages being held by Hamas, might be the first humanitarian step to lead to a renewal of hostage releases.
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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, during his latest trip to the Middle East that there was no military solution to Hamas and that the Israeli leader needed to recognise that or history would repeat itself, the US broadcaster NBC has reported, citing anonymous US officials.
Reuters has been carrying some quotes from Pakistan’s military about the strikes it carried out inside Iran.
It said the “precision strikes” were carried out using killer drones, rockets, loitering munitions and standoff weapons. It claimed that maximum care was taken to avoid collateral damage.
It claimed that hideouts used by the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front were successfully struck, labelling them as “terrorist” organisations.
Going forward, it said, dialogue and cooperation was deemed prudent in resolving bilateral issues between the two neighbouring brotherly countries.
Earlier Iran reported that nine people, including four children, had been killed in the strikes, and that none of them were Iranian nationals. Tehran has strongly condemned the strike, which happened a day after Iran itself had struck at what it described as terrorists inside Pakistan.
Suspected Jordanian airstrikes inside southern Syria kill ten people – reports
Suspected airstrikes by Jordan on southern Syria killed ten people including children early on Thursday, according to local Syrian media and monitors tracking the conflict. Reuters reports there was no immediate comment from Jordanian authorities.
Herzog at Davos: Gazan population entrenched in a network of terror, and ’empire of evil’ emanating from Tehran
Graeme Wearden
Graeme Wearden is in Davos for the Guardian, and has been watching an appearance by Israel’s president Isaac Herzog:
Israel’s president has told the Davos conference that there is an “empire of evil” emanating from Tehran which must be faced by a very strong coalition, and that Gaza’s population is entrenched in a network of terror.
Billions of dollars, Isaac Herzog said, are being spent to destabilise the world, with Iran funding proxies all around the region to undermine any peace process.
Herzog began by telling Davos delegates that Israel’s world was shattered on 7 October by the Hamas attacks.
He said Israelis had suffered atrocities including rapes, the chopping of heads, the burning of families. And he cited the example of Kfir Bibas, who turns one in Hamas captivity today after he, his four-year-old brother Ariel and parents, Yarden and Shiri Bibas, were taken hostage.
Herzog said he called on those at Davos, and indeed the “entire universe”, to work endlessly to release all the hostages still held. The oldest hostage was 85 years old, he added, and many were people of peace.
Herzog said he wanted a better future for the Palestinians, who are “our neighbours”.
Since 7 October Palestinian authorities say nearly 25,000 Palestinian people have been killed by Israeli military action in the Gaza Strip, and more than 350 killed over the same period by Israeli security forces in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. 1.9 million people, or nearly 85% of Gaza’s population, are estimated to have been internally displaced since Israel military began ordering evacuations.
If you speak to Israeli citizens, Herzog said, they cannot think about a peace agreement because everyone wants to know if they can be promised security. Every Israeli wants to know they won’t be attacked from the north, south or east, he added.
Herzog said he had been calling for peace with Israel’s neighbours for years, but that terror cannot be accepted, adding it has to be totally stopped and made out of the question.
In its case at the international court of justice against Israel accusing it of committing genocide in Gaza, South Africa cited Herzog as a president “signing bombs destined for Gaza” and “having previously noted that the entire population in Gaza is responsible [for 7 October] and that ‘this rhetoric about civilians not aware, not involved, is absolutely not true … we will fight until we break their backbone’”.
Herzog said at Davos this morning that people who supported Hamas were supporting barbaric terror. He then spoke about the Hamas infrastructure Israel claims to have found in shops, living rooms, bedrooms and schools in Gaza.
He said: “We care, we care, it is painful for us that our neighbours are suffering so much,” adding that they were entrenched in a network of terror, which Israel was determined to remove.
The death toll in Pakistan’s attack inside Iran has risen to nine, AFP reports.
“Two men were also killed in the missile attack this morning in one of the border villages of Saravan, bringing the death toll to nine,” the official IRNA news agency said, quoting Alireza Marhamati, deputy provincial governor of Iran’s Sistan-Balochistan province.
Marhamati had earlier said that three women and four children were killed in the strikes.
In a televised interview, Iran’s interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, said all the dead “were foreign nationals”.
The Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that Israel has detained 48 Palestinians overnight and this morning in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
It is estimated that Israel has detained 6,000 Palestinians from the occupied territory since the 7 October attack by Hamas inside southern Israel.
Wafa also reports that one Palestinian has been killed as Israel continues a raid on the city of Tulkarm for the second day, where “a house was blown up by the forces, who burned another, and severely beat a number of civilians, amid widespread destruction of the infrastructure”.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
