Fifteen Israeli soldiers were killed in combat in the Gaza Strip over the weekend, the Israeli military said Sunday, in one of the deadliest days of fighting since the Israeli ground offensive began in late October, a sign that Hamas is still fighting despite weeks of brutal war.
The rising death toll among Israeli troops is likely to be a major factor in Israel's public support for the war, triggered by a Hamas-led militant assault on southern Israeli towns on Oct. 7, in which 1,200 people were killed and 240 captured. The war has swept through parts of the Gaza Strip, killed some 20,400 Palestinians and displaced nearly 85 per cent of Gaza's 2.3 million people.
The Health Ministry in Gaza, a territory controlled by Hamas, reported 166 deaths in the past 24 hours in the coastal enclave.
Israelis strongly support the country's stated goals of crushing Gaza's military and governance capabilities and freeing the remaining 129 hostages. That support has been largely maintained despite mounting international pressure against the Israeli offensive, the rising death toll and the unprecedented suffering of Palestinians.
But the rising number of soldiers killed — 153 since the ground offensive began — could undermine that support. Soldier deaths are a sensitive issue in Israel, a country where military service is compulsory for most Jews.
Victims at a hospital in the city of Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Photo: Xinhua
The names of fallen soldiers are advertised at the top of the news, and in a small country of about 9 million people, virtually every family has a family member, friend or co-worker who has lost a relative in the war.
As Christmas night fell, plumes of smoke rose in Gaza as silence reigned in Bethlehem in the West Bank, where festivities were canceled.
Hamas charges a price
The 15 Israeli soldiers killed on Friday and Saturday were killed in battles in central and southern Gaza, an indication of how Hamas is putting up stiff resistance to the advance of Israeli troops, even though Israel claims to have dealt a heavy blow to the armed group.
According to Israeli army radio, four soldiers were killed when their vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile. The others were killed in separate sporadic battles.
Another soldier was killed in northern Israel by fire from the Lebanese Shiite armed group Hezbollah, which has been engaged in low-level fighting with Israel since the war with Hamas began, raising fears of a wider regional conflict.
"The war takes a heavy toll on us, but we have no choice but to keep fighting," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a meeting of his government on Sunday.
"We continue with full strength, until the end, until victory, until we reach our goals."
While Israelis have supported the war effort, there is widespread discontent with Netanyahu's government, which many criticize for failing to protect civilians on Oct. 7 and promoting policies that allowed Hamas to gain strength for years.
Thousands of people rallied Saturday night in Tel Aviv in a downpour, chanting "Bibi, Bibi, we don't want you anymore," using Netanyahu's nickname.
Netanyahu has avoided taking responsibility for the military and political failures that led to Oct. 7, saying hewould ponder tough questions once the fighting was over.
Efforts to secure another truce were continuing. On Sunday, the leader of Islamic Jihad, another group that participated in the attack on Israel, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, arrived in Cairo for talks. That group says it is willing to release hostages only after a ceasefire. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh traveled to Cairo a few days ago.
Buildings destroyed in the Al Nusairat refugee camp in Gaza. Photo: EFE
Egypt and Qatar have been mediating the negotiations.
Expanding the Offensive
The Israeli offensive is already one of the most devastating in recent history. More than two-thirds of the 20,000 Palestinians killed were women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Sunday morning that a 13-year-old boy had been killed by an Israeli drone while inside the Al-Amal hospital building in Khan Younis, where Israel said Hamas leaders are hiding. No further details were given.
An Israeli strike overnight hit a house in a refugee camp west of the city of Rafah, on the Gaza-Egyptian border. At least two men died, according to Associated Press journalists, at the hospital where their bodies were taken.
At least two people were killed and six wounded when a missile hit a building in the Buriej refugee camp in central Gaza.
Palestinians reported heavy Israeli shelling and gunfire Sunday morning in the town of Jabaliya, an area north of Gaza City that Israel had said it controlled. Hamas' military branch said its fighters had fired rockets at Israeli troops in the town and refugee camp of Jabaliya.
Smoke over Gaza after an Israeli attack. Photo: Reuters
"There is shelling and heavy fighting at night," said Assad Radwan, a Palestinian fisherman from Jabaliya. "The sounds of explosions and gunfire never stopped."
Israel has come under heavy international criticism for the rising civilian death toll, widespread damage and deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israel blames Hamas for the high civilian casualty toll, saying the militants attack and then hide among civilians. Israel has carried out thousands of airstrikes since Oct. 7, and generally avoids commenting on specific strikes.
There are also those who accuse Israeli forces of mistreating Palestinian men and teenage boys in homes, shelters, hospitals and other locations during the offensive. Israel denies the accusations and says those with no ties to violent groups are quickly released.
Speaking to the AP from his bed in a hospital in Rafah after his release, Khamis al-Burdainy of Gaza City said Israeli forces detained him after tanks and bulldozers partially destroyed his home. He said the troops handcuffed and blindfolded the men.
"We didn't sleep, they didn't give us food or water," she said, sobbing.
Another freed Palestinian, Mohammed Salem of Shijaiyah, a neighborhood of Gaza City, said he was beaten by Israeli forces.
"They humiliated us," he said. "A female soldier hit a 72-year-old man."
Israel says it has killed thousands of Hamas militants, including about 2,000 in the past three weeks since expanding its offensive into southern Gaza, but has presented no evidence. He says he is dismantling Hamas' vast network of underground passages and killing Hamas commanders, an operation that government officials say could take months.
International pressure
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council passed a watered-down resolution calling for speeding up the delivery of humanitarian aid to hungry and desperate civilians in Gaza and the release of all hostages, but not a ceasefire.
Following the U.N. resolution, it was not initially clear how and when aid deliveries would be accelerated. The trucks enter through two crossings, the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt and the Kerem Shalom crossing on the border with Israel. Wael Abu Omar, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority for Border Crossings, said 93 trucks carrying aid entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Saturday.
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, reiterated the UN's calls for a humanitarian truce, adding on social media that "the destruction of the health system in Gaza is a tragedy."
Filippo Grandi, the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, on Saturday reiterated calls by other senior U.N. officials for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza to deliver aid and help free hostages.
"In order for aid to reach those in need, hostages must be released, further displacement must be prevented and above all the devastating loss of life must cease and there must be a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, it is the only way forward," X wrote.
Israel's allies in Europe have also doubled down on their calls for a halt to the fighting. But the United States, Israel's main ally, appeared to maintain its staunch support for Israel despite intensifying its calls for more protection for civilians in Gaza.
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu on Saturday, a day after the U.S. shielded Israel from a more aggressive resolution at the UN. Biden said he did not call for a ceasefire, while Netanyahu's office reported that the prime minister "made clear that Israel will continue the war until all of its objectives are achieved."
Source: AP
PB