Netanyahu defends planned military offensive in Gaza
Jerusalem – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel “has no choice but to finish work and finish the defeat of Hamas”.
He speaks to foreign media in Jerusalem and defends a planned military offensive. He says that “our goal is not to occupy Gaza, our goal is to release Gaza”. He also repels what he calls a “world campaign of lies” while the condemnation of the plan develops inside and outside Israel.
Netanyahu said there was a fairly short “calendar” in mind for the next stages in Gaza.
The goals there, he said, include the demilitarization of Gaza, the Israeli army with “security control or non-Israeli civil administration.
The Prime Minister also declared that he had ordered the soldiers of Israel in recent days of “bringing more foreign journalists” – which would be a striking development because they were not allowed to enter Gaza beyond the military.
Netanyahu has again blamed many Gaza problems on Hamas, including civil deaths, destruction and aid shortages.
More Palestinians killed while they are looking for help in Gaza
At least 26 Palestinians were killed as they asked for help in the Gaza Strip, hospitals and witnesses said, while families of Israeli hostages called for general entry to protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend military operations on the territory.
Netanyahu should give a press conference for foreign and local media later Sunday in the midst of the international conviction of her plans. His address will come just before the United Nations Security Council draws an emergency meeting on the Israel plan to take control of Gaza City.
Hospital officials said they had received bodies from regions where the Palestinians were looking for help – either along the food convoy routes, or aid distribution points at a private pace through Gaza.
The dead include 10 who were killed while waiting for aid trucks near the newly built Morag corridor that separates the southern cities from Rafah and Khan Younis, said Nasser Hospital.
According to the Ministry of Health and the Shifa Hospital in Gaza, six other people were killed while waiting for help in northern Gaza near the Zikim crossing, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health and the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City which made the victims.
In the center of Gaza, witnesses said they had heard warning plans for the first time before the fire is addressed to the crowds of help seekers trying to reach a food distribution site operated by the Gaza Humaninian Foundation. AP cannot confirm independently who fired the blows. The AWDA hospital of the Nusirat neighboring refugee camp said four people had been killed by Israeli shots.
“First of all, it was in the air, then they started shooting people,” said Sayed Awda, who waited hundreds of meters (Yards) on the GHF site in the region.
Six other help seekers were killed while trying to reach GHF sites in Khan Younis and Rafah, said Nasser Hospital.
The United States and Israel supported the Foundation months ago as an alternative to the ununiated aid system, but its first operations were tainted by death and chaos, with aid seekers who are under the shots near the roads leading to the sites.
Responding to requests for information on Associated Press, the GHF media office said: “There was no incident on or near our sites today and these incidents seem to be linked to crowds trying to loot a help convoy.”
The Israeli army also said that there was no incident involving Israeli troops near the Gaza central aid sites.
Seven people were killed in air strikes, local hospitals reported – three people near the wearing of fishermen in Gaza City and four people, including two children, in a strike that struck a tent at Khan Younis. The Israeli army did not immediately comment on strikes, but accused Hamas of operating in civil zones.
Mount of death by hunger, the toll among the children strikes 100
The air and soil offensive of Israel has moved most of the population and pushed the territory to famine. On Saturday, two other Palestinian children died of causes linked to malnutrition, bringing the number of deaths among children in Gaza to 100 since the start of the war.
In total, 117 adults died of causes related to malnutrition since the end of June when the ministry began to count this age category, he said.
The assessment of hunger is not included in the number of deaths of the ministry of 61,400 Palestinians in the war. The ministry, which is part of the government managed by Hamas and endowed with health professionals, does not distinguish between combatants or civilians, but says that around half of the dead have been women and children. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on the victims of the war.
A labor strike asked Israel at the origin of the Gaza City offensive
The prospect of expanding war aroused indignation both internationally and in Israel, where the bereaved families and the relatives of hostages have always urged businesses to declare a general strike next week.
Tens of thousands of Israelis joined Tel Aviv on Saturday evening in what local media called one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in recent months.
Families and their supporters hope to put pressure on the government to reverse its decision to resume the city of Gaza, warning that the expansion of the war will endanger their loved ones.
Of the 251 people kidnapped when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200, around 50 remain in Gaza, with 20 Israel who would be alive.
Lishay Miran-Lavi, whose OMRI husband is among the hostages, also called on US President Donald Trump and Steve Witkoff’s special envoy to stop war.
“The decision to send the army more deeply to Gaza is a danger to my husband, Omri. But we can still stop this disaster,” she said.
Also Sunday, the Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz visited the northern part of the West Bank occupied by Israeli. He said the Israeli army would remain in the region’s refugee camps at least until the end of the year.
This year, around 40,000 Palestinians were driven out of their houses in the largest displacement of the West Bank since Israel captured the territory in 1967. Israel said that operations are necessary to eliminate activism, because the violence of all parties has jumped since October 7 of Hamas, 2023, attacking war in Gaza.
Katz said on Sunday the number of warnings concerning attacks against the Israelis in the West Bank had decreased by 80% since the start of the operation in January.
Metz reported on Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. The writer Associated Press, Melanie Lidman, contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.
Originally published:
