Despite international calls to silence the guns, there is no respite in sight after more than two months of war against the Palestinian Islamist movement, which unleashed an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7. Le Figaro takes stock of the situation.
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Gaza must be 'demilitarized' and 'deradicalised', says Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said peace will only be achieved if Gaza is "demilitarized" and "deradicalized," after announcing an intensification of fighting against Hamas in the Palestinian territory. "We don't stop, (...) We are intensifying the fighting in the coming days. It's going to be a long war," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday after visiting Gaza.
In the columns of the Wall Street Journal, he also set out three "pre-requisites" for achieving peace. "Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized, and Palestinian society must be deradicalized," he said. Preventing the smuggling of weapons "will require the establishment of a temporary safe zone on the perimeter of Gaza," Netanyahu said, ruling out entrusting the future administration of the territory to the Palestinian Authority, which he accused of "financing and glorifying terrorism" in the West Bank. "In the near future, Israel will have to retain primary responsibility for security in Gaza," from which it unilaterally withdrew in 2005 after 38 years of occupation, he said.
According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Netanyahu also said he was ready to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians out of Gaza. "Our problem is not whether to allow an exit, but whether there will be countries that will be willing to absorb an exit," he told lawmakers from his Likud party, according to Haaretz.
A Deadly Weekend
A strike on Sunday night killed at least 70 people in the central al-Maghazi refugee camp, according to the Hamas Health Ministry. The Israeli military, which said it was doing its utmost to spare civilians, said it was "verifying the incident."
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They tell us to go south, north, centre: it's all lies and deception, there is no safe zone in the Gaza Strip," Abu Rami Abu Al-Ais, a resident of the camp, told AFP. "The children are reduced to the status of leftovers. What is the fault of these innocent children?" At the nearby hospital in Deir el-Balah, dozens of bodies were wrapped in body bags after the strike, AFP reported.
Benjamin Netanyahu heckled
In Israel, pressure continues to free the hostages. On Monday, Mr. Netanyahu was heckled during a speech in parliament by families who chanted "Now, now!" What if it was your son?", "80 days, every minute is hell", read banners held up by his relatives. A demonstration was also held in Tel Aviv.
Hamas, considered a terror group by Israel, the United States and the European Union, is demanding an end to the fighting before starting new negotiations for the release of hostages. Despite the intransigence of both sides, Egyptian and Qatari mediators are still trying to negotiate a new truce, after a week-long truce at the end of November that allowed the release of 105 hostages against 240 Palestinian prisoners and the entry into Gaza of large amounts of aid.
Read also"They remain dignified, with their heads held high, their hearts pure": the testimony of a relative of Hamas hostages after their release
U.S. Strikes in Iraq
Beyond Gaza, the spectre of a widening conflict still looms, with near-daily and sometimes deadly exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and the Israeli army on the Lebanon-Israel border, and attacks by Yemen's Houthi rebels on ships in the Red Sea and Arabian Sea. Attacks blamed on U.S. troops by pro-Iranian groups have increased in Iraq and Syria since the start of the war between Hamas and Israel.
The U.S. said it struck three sites in Iraq on Monday used by Hamas-allied Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces, in response to an attack on U.S. personnel in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil. Iran also accused Israel of killing one of its top brass in a missile strike in Syria on Monday. The Revolutionary Guards have identified the brigadier general, Razi Mousavi, as a "logistical officer of the axis of resistance" to Israel, which includes Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.