Day 33 of the war between Israel and Hamas, which began when the ruling Islamist organization in Gaza attacked communities bordering the strip on October 7, killing more than 1,400 Israelis and kidnapping some 240, dawned with the first Israeli message optimistic about the fight, both on the part of the army and the political leadership: “I think it is going a little better than expected in terms of the pace of advance and the proportion of casualties,” said Eran Lerman, vice president of the Institute for Strategy and Security. from Jerusalem and former deputy director of Israel’s National Security Council, according to Kan public radio. “Given the extremely complex conditions, they are doing it very wisely and carefully.”
After troops were stationed on the Gaza border for weeks following the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history, three divisions entered and have divided the territory in two and advanced towards the heart of Gaza City. This Wednesday the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported that one of the main people responsible for Hamas rocket production was killed in a night attack.
“The IDF and the ISA (domestic intelligence service) They killed a high-ranking arms producer in the Hamas military hierarchy”the Israeli military statement said. They identified him as Muhsin Abu Zina, “specialized in the manufacture of strategic weapons and rockets,” and classified as “head of the industries and weapons division” of the terrorist group.
The Israeli military statement explained today, as on other occasions, that in separate night operations, the IDF said that ground troops directed a plane to attack a Hamas anti-tank missile squadron, and that an airstrike killed several members of a squad responsible for launching rockets into Israel, detailing the type of coordination between the infantry and the air force, which advance together over the territory.
Gazans in exodus from north to south
In the morning hours United Nations sources on the ground reported that the number of Palestinians fleeing to southern Gaza from the north had increased considerably. As the Israeli air and ground campaign around Gaza City has intensified, Columns of civilians have been seen leaving the area that the Israelis have been urging them to leave for weeks.
“If you care about yourself and your loved ones, please head south according to our instructions. Rest assured, Hamas leaders have already taken care of themselves,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Arabic spokesman Avichay Adraee said on X.
They circulate videos of civilians waving white flags as they walk along roads and paths on which they can move during a four-hour period established daily by the IDF that guarantees safe passage from Gaza City and its surroundings to the south. Today the opening was from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., according to Adraee.
“Some 15,000 people fled on Tuesday, compared to 5,000 on Monday and 2,000 on Sunday,” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The majority of those who flee, said the observers of the supranational organization, They are children, the elderly and people with disabilities.
The densely populated northern area of Gaza, particularly Gaza City and the adjacent urban refugee camps, are the focus of Israel’s campaign to try to defeat Hamas.
While, Tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians still remain in the combat zone, many of them refugees in UN hospitals or schools. Some said they were unable to move south because of continued Israeli airstrikes.
In this regard, Israel accuses Hamas of trying to retain its civilians in the northern part of Gaza to use them as human shields and in recent days images have been released from within the impoverished and destroyed enclave in which Dozens of civilians are seen shot dead on the roads where they were trying to get away from the Israeli bombings. The Army spokesman accuses Hamas of the killings.
The slow counting and identification
The Israeli police reported that, to date, has identified 843 civilian victims of the massacre of Saturday, October 7. The figure includes nine more people than the last announcement on Monday.
In late October, police said 826 victims had been identified and an estimated 150 remained in 400 body bags at the Shura camp-turned-morgue, where a massive effort is underway to identify the long-dead. one month.
Israeli authorities estimate that around 1,000 civilians killed in Hamas infiltrationalong with some 400 members of the security forces, but the identification tasks continue given the conditions of dismemberment and calcination in which many of the corpses are found.
According to Channel 12 news on Tuesday, 25 people remain missing (not sure dead, but not kidnapped either), including 15 foreigners, believed to be mainly Thai farm workers.
[[H3:La Gaza del futuro…]]
The future of Gaza is, as always, inextricably linked to that of Israel, and debates about the future of the territory are settled in the media and political centers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has not given interviews to Israeli media in a long time, said last night on the American ABC that Israel would assume responsibility for security in Gaza indefinitely.
Faced with that, the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken, When asked at a press conference after the G7 meeting in Tokyo, he responded that postwar Gaza should be neither under occupation nor under Israeli blockade, but also said that there may be a “transition period.”
