Israel’s Netanyahu says Gaza ceasefire ‘will not happen’
Israeli army says attacked 450 Hamas targets in Gaza
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians has passed 8,000 — mostly women and minors.
Thousands of people broke into aid warehouses in Gaza to take flour and basic hygiene products, U.N. agency
GAZA + TEL AVIV + JERUSALEM ( Web News )
Netanyahu also told a press conference that other countries must give more help in the struggle to free more than 230 hostages kidnapped by Hamas in its October 7 attacks.
The Israeli leader said the international community must demand the captives “be freed immediately, unconditionally.”
He said among the captives were 33 children and Hamas was “terrorizing them, keeping them as hostages.”
“Just as the United States would not agree to a ceasefire after the bombing of Pearl Harbor or after the terrorist attack of 9/11, Israel will not agree to a cessation of hostilities with Hamas after the horrific attacks of October 7,” he said at a press conference with foreign journalists.
“Calls for a ceasefire are a call for Israel to surrender to Hamas, to surrender to terrorism, to surrender to barbarism. This will not happen.”
Vowing that Israel would “fight until this battle is won,” Netanyahu said the army was going out of its way to “prevent civilian casualties” in Gaza.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 8,306 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Israeli air and artillery strikes since the war erupted on October 7 after Hamas’ deadly attack on southern Israel killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians.
The Israeli army on Sunday said it attacked 450 Hamas targets in Gaza during the past hours.
The army also said it was targeting observation points and anti-tank missile launch sites in Gaza.
Israel said Saturday its war on Hamas had “entered a new phase” with its massive bombardment of Gaza as the Palestinian group demanded the release of all Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages it seized three weeks ago.
The United Nations warned thousands more civilians could die in Gaza as Israel said ground forces were still operating inside the Hamas-run territory more than 24 hours after entering it on Friday.
Turkey condemns attack on Turkish-Palestinian hospital in Gaza
Turkey on Monday condemned “in the strongest terms” what it said was an Israeli attack on Gaza’s Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital, the foreign ministry said, adding such attacks and the blockade on Gaza were clear violations of international law.
“It is inexplicable for such an attack to take place given all the necessary information, including the coordinates of the institution in question, which is the only cancer hospital in Gaza, was shared with Israeli authorities in advance,” the ministry said in a statement.
Medical officials said air strikes in the vicinity of the major Gaza City hospitals including al-Shifa, al-Quds and the Turkish Friendship hospital, have caused damage.
A female Israeli soldier was rescued from captivity in the Gaza Strip, the army said Monday, following an operation in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory.
The release of soldier Ori Megidish was “secured during a ground operation after being kidnapped by Hamas on October 7,” the army said in a statement.
“The soldier was medically checked, is doing well, and has met with her family.”
The office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a photograph of Megidish in which she is seen surrounded with her family members.
Israeli bomb attacks target areas in southern Lebanon
Israeli bomb attacks on Sunday targeted areas in southern Lebanon opposite the city of Nahariya, according to reports from the Israeli daily newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
Nearly 29,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon amid deadly exchanges between Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli army, a United Nations agency said Friday.
A total of 28,965 people have been displaced, mainly in the country’s south, the International Organization for Migration said in an update, adding that the figure had risen by 37 percent since October 23.
Some have found refuge with family members elsewhere in the country, while those who can afford it have been able to rent apartments on a short-term basis.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said the death toll among Palestinians has passed 8,000 — mostly women and minors. It’s a toll without precedent in decades of Israeli-Palestinian violence, and one that is expected to climb even more rapidly as Israel presses its ground offensive.
Thousands of people broke into aid warehouses in Gaza to take flour and basic hygiene products, a U.N. agency said Sunday, in a mark of growing desperation and the breakdown of public order three weeks into the war between Israel and Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers.
Gaza for the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, said the warehouse break-ins were “a worrying sign that civil order is starting to break down after three weeks of war and a tight siege on Gaza. People are scared, frustrated and desperate,” he said.
UNRWA provides basic services to hundreds of thousands of people in Gaza. Its schools across the territory have been transformed into packed shelters housing Palestinians displaced by the conflict. Israel has allowed only a small trickle of aid to enter from Egypt, some of which was stored in one of the warehouses that was broken into, UNRWA said.
Netanyahu says the Gaza war has entered a new stage and will be ‘long and difficult’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the nation Saturday night that the military has opened a “second stage” in the war against Hamas by sending ground forces into Gaza and expanding attacks from the ground, air and sea. The Gaza war has entered a new stage and will be ‘ ling and difficult.
Casting the war as a fight for his country’s very survival, he warned that the assault would only intensify ahead of a broad ground invasion into the territory.
“There are moments in which a nation faces two possibilities: to do or die,” Netanyahu said. “We now face that test and I have no doubt how it will end: We will be the victors. We will do and we will be the victors.”
Palestinian Red Crescent says Israeli authorities asked to evacuate Al-Quds hospital
“Since this morning, there has been raids 50 meters away from the hospital,” it added in a statement on Facebook.
An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment when asked about the Palestinian Red Crescent statement during a media briefing.
An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment when asked about the Palestinian Red Crescent statement during a media briefing.
Saudi defense minister to meet top US officials in DC amid ongoing Israel-Hamas war
Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman is expected to meet with top US government officials on Monday in Washington DC, a Saudi official told Al Arabiya English on Sunday.
He is expected to meet top Biden administration officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
Prince Khalid will also likely meet National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and White House’s Middle East policy chief, Brett McGurk.
His visit takes place amid increased violence and tensions in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict. Israel said Saturday its war on Hamas had “entered a new phase” with its massive bombardment of the besieged enclave.
Iran: Israeli actions in Gaza have ‘crossed red lines, may force everyone’ to act
Israel has been pounding the tiny Palestinian territory since Hamas gunmen stormed across the border on October 7 and, according to Israeli officials, killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.
Since then, more than 8,000 people have been killed, half of them children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, an impoverished strip of land which is home to 2.4 million people.
“The crimes of the Zionist regime have crossed the red lines, and this may force everyone to take action,” Raisi said on X, formerly Twitter, on Sunday.
“Washington asks us to not do anything, but they keep giving widespread support to Israel,” he said.
“The US sent messages to the Axis of Resistance but received a clear response on the battlefield,” he said, using a term often used by Iranian officials to refer to a network of regional militant groups supported by Tehran. This network includes organizations like the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, as well as various militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthi militia in Yemen.
Iraqi factions target American base in Syria’s Al-Hasakah province: Syrian TV
Iraqi factions on Sunday targeted an American base in Syria’s Al-Hasakah province in the north of the country, according to Syrian television reports.
On Friday, American forces shot down an attack drone near a base where the country’s troops are deployed in western Iraq, a US defense official said.
The attempted drone attack came after the United States struck two military facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran’s IRGC and affiliated groups, which Washington says are behind a spike in attacks targeting American forces in the region.