- Benjamin Netanyahu ignored pleading from world leaders for a ceasefire
- Pope Francis implored him to stop the war ‘in the name of God’
- The Foreign Minister of neighbouring Jordan said Israel was ‘losing its humanity’
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu last night defied calls for a ceasefire in Gaza by Pope Francis and Middle East leaders, as the IDF rained hell down upon the Gaza Strip as part of its ongoing ‘circling’ campaign against the enclave.
Fires engulfed whole buildings in the Gaza Strip as the IDF carried on its bombardment campaign, as the Israeli PM told IDF troops at the Ramon air force base in southern Israel that war would only stop when Hamas was completely destroyed.
‘Our enemies misjudged us. There will be no ceasefire without the return of the hostages,’ Netanyahu said.
‘This should be completely removed from the lexicon. We say this to our friends and to our enemies. We will simply continue until we defeat them. We have no alternative.’
The hard-line rhetoric comes as world leaders, including direct neighbours, pleaded with the 74-year-old leader to stop the incessant bombing of the enclave.
Pope Francis called for humanitarian aid and help for injured Gazans in order to ease the ‘very grave’ situation.
‘I keep thinking about the grave situation in Palestine and Israel where many people have lost their life. I pray you to stop in the name of god, cease the fire,’ he said, speaking to crowds in St Peter’s Square after his weekly Angelus prayer on Sunday.
‘I hope that all will be done to avoid the conflict from widening, that the injured will be rescued and aid will arrive to the population of Gaza, where the humanitarian situation is very grave,’ he added.
Meanwhile Ayman Safadi, the foreign minister of Jordan, which shares a border with Israel, lamented that ‘Israel is losing its humanity in this war’ after airstrikes struck two central Gaza refugee camps, allegedly killing at least 53 people and wounding dozens more.
‘This madness cannot continue and this war has to stop,’ Safadi told Sky News.
‘Nobody is benefiting, on the contrary everybody is losing.’
The Israel Defence Force says it has already ‘fully encircled Gaza City’ and is carrying out ‘widespread strikes on terror infrastructure’ below and above ground after revealing what they say is more evidence of Hamas’s ‘City of Terror’ tunnel network.
Amid reports of ‘severe clashes’ between Israeli forces and Hamas, Gaza’s Hamas government claimed Israel’s forces carried out ‘intense bombing’ around several hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, shortly after telecommunications were cut.
Gaza has reportedly come under its third total communications outage since the start of the war, while Israel’s military announced it had surrounded Gaza City and divided the besieged coastal strip into two.
‘Today there is north Gaza and south Gaza,’ IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said last night, as he called it a ‘significant stage’ in the war against Hamas. Israeli media reported troops are expected to enter Gaza City within 48 hours.
It came as Israel accused Hamas of war crimes, revealing new evidence that it says proves the terror group uses hospitals in the Gaza Strip as military bases while preventing civilians from escaping.
‘Hamas is weak without human shields,’ said Hagari as the previously classified intelligence was published which he said had been shared with partner agencies from the US and UK.
He showed aerial photos of Hamas rocket launchpads near the ‘Indonesian’ hospital in Gaza, and said the terrorists knew that the IDF could not launch an airstrike with collateral damage to the hospital.
Amid crippling shortages of fuel for hospitals and homes, Hagari said further material shared by the IDF shows ‘there is no shortage of fuel in Gaza. It is in the hands of Hamas. They are stealing it from the hospitals.’
He added that some of that fuel was stored under the Indonesian hospital, which was only 75 metres from a launch site, and the building was actually constructed over Hamas’ ‘City of Terror’, the spider’s web of tunnels beneath the enclave.
There was also a recording of a Gazan official telling a colleague: ‘They say there is a fuel shortage in Gaza, they are liars, liars,’ in a recorded conversation, which Hagari said the United States had verified.
At another civilian facility, the Sheikh Hamad, known as the ‘Qatari’ hospital, Hagari showed what he said is photo evidence of tunnel entrances alongside the building discovered by Israeli troops.
He also showed video footage of Hamas terrorists firing at the Israelis from inside the hospital.
There were video and audio clips purportedly showing that Hamas was actively preventing the evacuation of civilians from the northern Gaza strip, which the Israelis have encouraged through the dropping of 1.5m pamphlets, 6m pre-recorded phone calls and 4.4m SMS texts.
During one, said to be a recorded call to a resident of Jabalia refugee camp, an IDF officer tells them in Arabic: ‘There will not be any safe place.’
He said some of that fuel was stored under the Indonesian hospital, which was only 75 metres from a launch site, and the building was actually constructed over Hamas’ ‘City of Terror’, the spider’s web of tunnels beneath the enclave.
Hagari showed photos of Hamas vehicles blocking the exit road from northern Gaza and said its fighters had fired anti-tank weapons at Israeli troops who opened a humanitarian corridor to allow further evacuations.
The new intelligence has come to light as Israel’s military said it has split the besieged coastal enclave in two.
Troops ‘reached the coastline and are holding it’, he added.
‘There are now widespread strikes on terror infrastructure – below ground and above it,’ Hagari said.
On Sunday evening, dramatic pictures showed huge fireballs rising over Gaza City in the north, which Hamas has blamed on Israeli bombing.
‘For more than an hour, intense bombings have been taking place around hospitals,’ said Salama Marouf, the head of the Hamas government’s media office.
The vicinity of the Palestinian territory’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, saw particularly heavy strikes, according to Marouf.
The bombing came after the Israeli military once again accused Hamas of using hospitals in their military campaign against Israel.
‘Hamas places forces and weapons inside, under and around schools, mosques, homes and UN facilities,’ Hagari told reporters on Sunday.
‘Among the worst of Hamas war crimes is the use of hospitals to hide their terror infrastructure,’ he added. Hamas has repeatedly rejected the charge.
Asked what action Israel would take against the Hamas facilities he had identified, he said: ‘I can’t say more, but it must come to an end,’ adding, ‘Israel abides by international law.’
Israel has relentlessly pounded the besieged Gaza Strip in its battle to destroy Hamas, levelling entire city blocks and killing more than 9,700 people, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
The attack on Gaza came after Hamas militants stormed across the border on October 7 and killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, Israeli authorities say.
As Israel’s relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip continues into its 30th day, the conflict threatens to expand into all-out war on another front.
As daily cross-border exchanges of fire continue between Hezbollah and Israel’s military across the Israel/Lebanon border, the IDF’s Chief of Staff Lt. General Herzi Halevi said today that his army is prepared to go on the offence.
‘We set a goal of restoring a significantly better security situation on the borders, not only in the Gaza Strip,’ says Halevi during an assessment at the 210th Division in northern Israel today.
‘We are ready at any moment to go on the offense in the north. We understand that it can happen, and we trust you that the defense here is strong,’ he added.
Tensions are ratcheting up just a day after Hezbollah’s firebrand leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to escalate the war against Israel, warning of a ‘true battle’.
The powerful group’s leader praised the Alaqsa Flood – the name used by Hamas for its vicious assault last month.
He said the ‘glorious jihadi operation’ had led to an ‘earthquake’ in the Jewish state, revealed the weakness of Israel and its army, and established a new historical phase in the battle.
‘Your fleet in the Mediterranean do not scare us… We are ready to face the fleet you threaten us with,’ Nasrallah said, addressing the US. ‘Whoever wants to prevent a regional war must quickly stop the aggression on Gaza.’
The United States ‘impedes a ceasefire and the end of the aggression’, he added.
His heavily armed group, backed by Iran, carried out simultaneous attacks on Israeli positions along the Lebanese border, as residents of south Lebanon reported the fiercest Israeli strikes yet.
The IDF said its planes had struck Hezbollah targets in retaliation for their attack and combined the air strikes with artillery and tank shelling.
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.
