On the 220th day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, fighting escalated between the Palestinian resistance and the occupation army in the northern Gaza Strip, while occupation soldiers and settlers carried out attacks and incursions into villages and towns in the West Bank.
Today, Monday, we witnessed a major and remarkable escalation, especially in the areas of northern Gaza, which the Israeli army has again penetrated. Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent stated that the Israeli occupation mechanisms are trying to penetrate into the center of the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip, and have also sent in new reinforcements, amid fierce clashes with Resistance factions.
The reporter said that the occupation forces opened heavy fire on shelter centers in the camp, forcing hundreds of Palestinians to leave, and they also targeted ambulances trying to move inside the camp.
On the other hand, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), said that its fighters targeted with two Al-Yassin 105 shells two Merkava tanks that attempted to advance to the center of the Jabalia camp.
Al-Qassam added that its fighters were engaged in fierce clashes with Israeli soldiers east of George Street in the axis of the incursion east of the city of Rafah.
The resistance also carries out operations against the occupation forces penetrating the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood in Gaza City.
Despite international warnings, the Israeli army expanded the scope of its operations east of Rafah, and called on residents of other neighborhoods to move towards the Al-Mawasi area (between Rafah and Khan Yunis), under the pretext of the presence of Hamas military activity.
Abu Ubaida, spokesman for the Al-Qassam Brigades, announced the loss of contact with Qassam fighters guarding four prisoners held by the resistance in the Gaza Strip.
He said in a post on the official Hamas channel on the Telegram platform, “As a result of the barbaric Zionist bombing over the past ten days, our contact was cut off with a group of our mujahideen guarding 4 Zionist prisoners, including the prisoner Hersh Goldberg Pauline.”
Israeli statements
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel is bearing a “heavy and painful price” and is fighting what he called an “existential war,” pledging to continue the war until victory is achieved.
According to him, the Israeli army faces challenges that no modern army faces, stressing that Hamas must be eliminated first, before talking about the next day of war.
Netanyahu considered that the Israeli army must defend itself, and not ask the Americans or others to do so.
For his part, the head of the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet), Ronen Bar, said that the agency had lost 10 of its members since the beginning of the war, pointing to its failure to provide security cover for the Israelis on October 7 last year.
He stated that in-depth investigations are underway into the agency’s role in confronting the Hamas attack, which is a painful and important investigation, as he put it.
Israelis chanted against the far-right Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, during a ceremony commemorating the soldiers killed since 1948, while a number of them left the event in protest against Netanyahu’s speech.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the ceremony was held in more than one cemetery, including the military cemetery on Mount Herzl in West Jerusalem, while a number of them left during Netanyahu’s speech.
West Bank
In developments in the West Bank, in the early hours of Monday, occupation soldiers and settlers carried out attacks and incursions into villages and towns in the West Bank, resulting in injuries among Palestinian residents and the destruction of their property.
Large forces of the Israeli occupation army, reinforced with military vehicles and a bulldozer, stormed the village of Azzun, east of the city of Qalqilya in the West Bank.
In the same context, 11 Palestinians were injured in the town of Tal, south of the city of Nablus in the West Bank, during violent confrontations with the Israeli occupation forces that stormed the town.
On the other hand, settlers attacked Palestinian lands and property in the West Bank, and also blocked the path of an aid convoy heading to the Gaza Strip, while the Israeli occupation army stormed villages south of Nablus and south of Hebron.
Settlers obstructed the passage of the aid convoy to Gaza through the Tarqumiya crossing, west of the city of Hebron, in the south of the West Bank, this afternoon.
They destroyed the contents of the shipment of foodstuffs, and confirmed their refusal to allow the transfer of any aid to the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in light of the continued detention of Israeli prisoners in the Strip.
America’s position
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken discussed in a call with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant the situation in Gaza “and the ongoing efforts to release the hostages.”
The US State Department said, in a statement, that Blinken affirmed Washington’s firm commitment to Israel’s security “and the common goal of defeating Hamas.”
Regarding the American positions, US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said, in an interview with the US channel NBC News on Sunday evening, that Israel has the right to strike Gaza with a nuclear bomb, as his country did with the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II (1939-1945).
Graham said, “This is the right decision (a nuclear strike). Give Israel the bombs it needs to end the war, as it cannot bear the loss, and work with it to reduce human losses,” according to his claim.
The Hamas movement condemned Graham’s statements about bombing the Gaza Strip with a nuclear bomb, and stressed, in a statement, that these shocking statements demonstrate the depth of the moral decline that Graham has reached, and the mentality of genocide and colonialism that inhabits him.
Lebanon Front
On the Lebanese front, the Israeli occupation army announced today, Monday, that 4 soldiers were wounded after an anti-tank missile fell near Kibbutz Yiftah in the Upper Galilee, while the Lebanese Hezbollah announced that it had targeted a number of Israeli sites and caused injuries to them.
The Israeli army also announced the explosion of two explosive drones near Beit Hillel in northern Israel, which it said were launched from southern Lebanon.
For its part, Hezbollah said that it attacked with a swarm of drones tents for Israeli soldiers at a new site for the artillery battalion of the 91st Division, south of the Beit Hillel settlement.
The party also said that it carried out two attacks against two Israeli targets off the southern border of Lebanon, and that it targeted a Merkava tank with a guided missile when it was moving in the Yiftah barracks, which led to its destruction and the killing and wounding of its crew members.
Universities movement
The administration of Johns Hopkins University in the US state of Maryland reached an agreement with the students to end their sit-in that has been ongoing for about two weeks in support of Gaza, in exchange for cutting ties with Israeli institutions.
The students stressed that the agreement includes a binding timetable for the university administration to sever all ties with Israel, considering this a major victory for them, similar to what happened at other universities such as Brown and Northeastern.
Student protests against the war on Gaza expanded in Swiss universities on Monday, coinciding with sit-ins at British, Dutch and Belgian universities.
Swiss students organized protests at the universities of Basel, Bern, Friborg, and Neuchâtel, similar to the movement at the universities of Lausanne and Geneva.
Stop selling weapons
The opposition Labor Party in Britain called on the government to stop selling weapons to Israel for the first time, amid concerns about the military attack in Rafah.
The Telegraph newspaper reported that David Lammy, the opposition Foreign Minister or the so-called shadow government, urged the British authorities to suspend the sale of weapons that might be used in the attack on Rafah.
Source : Tel Aviv Tribune + Agencies + Israeli press