On the 222nd day of the Israeli aggression on Gaza, 60 Palestinians were martyred and 80 were injured in 5 massacres committed by the occupation in the Gaza Strip within 24 hours, bringing the number of martyrs to 35,233 and the wounded to 79,141.
The incursion into the Gaza Strip also witnessed violent clashes between the resistance and the occupation forces, and the resistance inflicted on those forces many losses in lives and vehicles.
While the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), announced that it had killed 12 Israeli soldiers in a combined operation, the occupation army admitted that 23 soldiers had been wounded during the past 24 hours in the Gaza battles.
Politically, differences surfaced between Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as Galant stated that he asked Netanyahu to find an alternative to the Hamas authority in Gaza, but he did not respond to him, stressing at the same time his opposition to military rule in the Strip.
In response, Netanyahu stressed that no civilian entity would enter to manage Gaza’s affairs, stressing the exclusion of the Palestinian Authority from the Strip in the post-war period.
New resistance operations
On Wednesday, the Palestinian resistance targeted the Israeli army with new operations in Jabalia and Rafah, inflicting additional losses on it, while the Israeli bombing left dozens of martyrs and wounded in several areas in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli sources also reported that 20 soldiers were killed and wounded in the explosion of a booby-trapped building in the Jabalia camp.
The resistance factions announced a series of operations, some of which were carried out jointly, and included ambushes, sniping of soldiers, and targeting of vehicles invading the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip and east of Rafah in the south, resulting in the deaths and injuries of Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli army said that 23 soldiers were injured during the past 24 hours in the Gaza battles, bringing the number of injured Israeli soldiers to 120 since last Friday.
Israel rejects a UN resolution
The Israeli government unanimously rejected on Wednesday a resolution issued by the United Nations General Assembly 5 days ago encouraging recognition of a Palestinian state and supporting granting Palestine full membership in the United Nations.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We will not allow them to establish a terrorist state through which they can further attack us, and no one will prevent us from exercising our fundamental right to defend ourselves, neither the United Nations General Assembly nor any other body.”
According to Netanyahu’s office, the government decided to reject the United Nations General Assembly’s resolution issued on May 10 to lift the status of the Palestinian Authority and grant it additional privileges, which are usually reserved for UN member states.
New Houthi attacks
The Yemeni Houthi group announced on Wednesday that it had hit a US warship and another ship heading to Israel in the Red Sea with missiles.
The group’s military spokesman, Yahya Saree, said in a statement that the group’s naval forces targeted the US destroyer “Mason” and the ship “Destiny” in the Red Sea with naval missiles, and the hit was accurate.
He stressed that their forces are continuing to carry out their military operations in support of the Palestinian people and in defense of Yemen, and that these operations will not stop unless the siege is lifted and the aggression against the Gaza Strip is stopped.
The university movement continues
The student movement rejecting the war on Gaza continues around the world, as a new sit-in began at Kyoto University in Japan, and Cambridge University students expanded the scope of their sit-in camp, while the Swiss University of Bern called in police forces to break up the student sit-in.
Protesters at Kyoto University demanded an end to any kind of cooperation with Israel, especially joint military research.
The students set up sit-in camps at the university and submitted a memorandum to its administration urging university president Nagahiro Minato to publicly condemn violence against Palestinian civilians.
On the other hand, the Swiss police moved at dawn on Wednesday to break up the student sit-in at the University of Bern, according to what the university administration announced.
About 30 students were protesting at the university when the police intervened to expel them around five in the morning local time (three in Greenwich Mean Time), and they left chanting slogans in support of the Palestinian people, according to the Keystone ATS news agency.
Escalation in southern Lebanon
Israeli Army Radio reported that 60 rockets were fired on Wednesday from southern Lebanon towards Israeli positions in the Upper Galilee and the Finger of Galilee, while Lebanese Hezbollah mourned one of its fighters, saying that he was “martyred in an Israeli raid.”
On the other hand, Hezbollah said that it targeted the headquarters of the 91st Division in the Pranit Barracks with Burkan missiles, achieving a direct hit and destroying part of it.
The party added that its fighters bombed, with dozens of Katyusha rockets, heavy rockets, and artillery shells, the headquarters of the air control unit at the Meron base, hitting its equipment and completely disabling parts of it.
On the other hand, Israeli occupation army spokesman Avichai Adraee said, “A prominent field commander in Hezbollah’s Southern Front unit was liquidated in the Tyre region.”
A Lebanese security source told Tel Aviv Tribune’s correspondent that an Israeli drone fired several missiles at the car in which the leader was traveling in the Al-Housh area in the city of Tyre, which led to its burning and the injury of those inside it.
Gallant challenges Netanyahu
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday called for a plan for after the war on Gaza and refused to establish military rule in the Strip, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he would not accept that the Palestinian authorities replace Hamas in running the Strip. In an unprecedented speech, Gallant came out to demand the Prime Minister of a clear plan. To manage Gaza after the war.
The Israeli Defense Minister said in a press conference in Tel Aviv that he would oppose any Israeli military rule of the Gaza Strip because it would be bloody, costly, and would last for years. He called on Netanyahu to announce that Israel would not take civilian control of the Gaza Strip and to find an alternative to the Hamas movement.
Gallant’s speech coincided with statements by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in which he said that Israel must develop a clear and specific plan for the future of the Gaza Strip, adding that a vacuum cannot be left in Gaza to be filled by chaos, as he put it.
On the other hand, Netanyahu said in his response to Gallant’s statements that eliminating Hamas without pretexts is the first condition for the second day of the war, and that he is not ready to replace Hamas’ rule with the Palestinian Authority, as he put it.
Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir was quick to denounce the Defense Minister’s statements and demanded his replacement to achieve the war’s goals.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smoterich also called on Netanyahu to give Gallant a choice between implementing government policy or resigning, saying that the Defense Minister actually announced his support for the establishment of a Palestinian state as a reward for Hamas and what he described as terrorism.
On the anniversary of the Nakba…a call to criminalize Israel
The Hamas movement said in a statement issued on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, “The aggression of the Zionist occupation that has continued for 76 years and the crimes of genocide that our people have been subjected to in the Gaza Strip for more than 7 months constitute a disgrace on the foreheads of all those who are silent and reluctant to expose it, criminalize it, and work to stop it.” The movement called for the criminalization of Israel and an end to the occupation.
Hamas said that the Battle of Al-Aqsa Flood confirmed “the legitimacy of our people’s struggle and the justice of our cause and restored its global presence, as a just national liberation cause to achieve freedom, independence, self-determination and the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital,” according to the statement.
