Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced this Monday that the war in the Gaza Strip
will not end until the death of the Hamas leaders,
which he predicted "will take months, not years," despite new fighting in the northern and southern areas. center previously under military rule.
"Our goal is a complete victory over Hamas
. We will kill the Hamas leaders, so we must continue to act in all areas of the Gaza Strip. The war must not end before then. It will take time, months, ( but) not years," the president said at a meeting of his party, the Likud coalition.
Members of the families of the 136 people who, after 122 days of war, are still kidnapped in the Gaza Strip, could not attend this meeting, local media reported, despite the fact that their access has been guaranteed in previous meetings.
Behind closed doors, Netanyahu took credit for the November release of 110 hostages, telling members of his party that he "will continue to act on this issue"
but that Hamas seeks to impose demands it will not accept.
A vehicle destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in the city of Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.
Xinhua Photo
"The key to their freedom (of the hostages) should be similar to the previous agreement," explained the president, who repeated that
"it will not be carried out at any price."
In the November exchange, a total of 105 hostages (following five earlier ones) were released
in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners
, many of them in administrative detention without trial.
But according to leaks from the latest negotiations, and although the draft agreement has not been made public, the Palestinian factions
are now demanding the release of some 100 or 150 hostage detainees
, including high-profile prisoners like Marwan Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences.
No concessions
On January 30, Netanyahu already announced, while new negotiations were taking place in Paris under the mediation of Qatar and Egypt, that
he was not going to release "thousands of terrorists"
or withdraw his troops from the Strip, another of Hamas' requirements. , until "absolute victory."
In the Gaza Strip, the death toll increased today, after 113 fatalities in the last 24 hours,
to 27,478 dead and at least 66,835 injured
, according to the latest data released by the Gaza Ministry of Health, controlled by Hamas.
The Israeli Army confirmed that
fighting has intensified in the north and center of the Strip
, after Israel focused its offensive on Khan Younis (south), in order to prevent "Hamas from rebuilding its capabilities" in these areas, it detailed. today a military statement.
Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip in Deir al Balah.
AP Photo
During a raid last week on Gaza City, reduced to smithereens after months of bombing, and on the Al Shati refugee camp, both in the north of the enclave, the army claimed to have
killed "hundreds of terrorists and arrested dozens".
"This is an area that initially required three divisions and three days to reach it. Now, two combat teams reached this area in an hour and a half," detailed in a statement the commander of the 162nd division, Itzik Cohen, which operates in the north.
The presence of troops in these areas has also been felt by overwhelmed medical teams that operate under extreme danger,
when they are not directly attacked by soldiers as in the Al Ama
l Hospital (south), every time they try to move to help the wounded.
In the center of the enclave, at least four civilians were killed and dozens wounded in a combined attack by aircraft and artillery against a house in the Al Hakar neighborhood, the official Palestinian Wafa agency reported.
In another attack on a house in the Al Zawaida area, north of Deir Al Balah, an Israeli aerial bombardment also killed eight Palestinians, most of them children, according to local medical sources;
in a war that will still claim the lives of more civilians.
Source: EFE and AP
P.B.