“Won’t Stop…”: Biden, the oldest woman confirmed to have been held captive by Hamas

Israeli troops engaged Hamas in action on Thursday in Gaza, as aerial bombardments and urban warfare shook Khan Yunis, a city in the south where hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees have sought safety.

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the UN World Health Organization, demanded “urgent steps to alleviate the grave peril” that besieged Gaza’s population was experiencing, including “terrible injuries, acute hunger, and… severe risk of disease”.

Families of hostages remaining in Hamas custody in Gaza staged protests in Jerusalem to call for their release, while a kibbutz said that a 70-year-old US-Israeli lady, believed to be the oldest prisoner, had passed away in the October 7 strikes.

Speaking on how “devastated” he was to learn of Judith Weinstein Haggai’s death, US President Joe Biden promised that Washington would “not stop working” with its partner Israel to free the other captives.

Since Hamas’s launch on Israel on October 7, the conflict has resulted in the destruction of most of northern Gaza and a constant movement of the battlefront deeper south of the beleaguered enclave.

Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza commander for Hamas, was born and raised in Khan Yunis, where AFP journalists saw continuous artillery and airstrikes. The Israeli army claimed it had sent another brigade there.

Around 14,000 people are reportedly taking refuge in the area around the city’s Al-Amal hospital, where the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said that at least ten people had been killed by shelling.

In the course of Thursday’s bombardment of the Shaboura camp in the southern city of Rafah, 20 people—mostly women and children—were murdered, according to the health ministry of Gaza, which is governed by Hamas. Dozens more were injured.

In reprisal for the October 7 strike, which claimed the lives of roughly 1,140 people, the majority of them civilians, Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas, according to an AFP count based on Israeli numbers.

On October 7, Hamas also captured 250 hostages, of whom more than half are still detained. Their relatives, who demanded that Hamas “bring them home,” are very concerned about this.

At least 21,320 Palestinians, largely women and children, have died as a result of Israel’s unrelenting aerial bombing and ground invasion, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which is managed by Hamas.

The ministry’s spokesperson, Ashraf al-Qudra, said on Thursday that there had been 200 more strikes-related fatalities in the last 24 hours, “including entire families”.

In its battle against Hamas, which Israel, the US, and the EU see as a “terrorist” organization, the Israeli army claims that 167 of its troops have died inside Gaza.

The army said that since October 7, more than 500 troops have lost their lives, mostly as a result of cross-border fighting with Hezbollah and the Hamas offensive as well as fighting to recover southern Israel and Gaza.

War-related quadruplets born

According to the UN, over 80% of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been forced from their homes, and many of them are now living in small shelters or improvised tents in the extreme south, close to the Egyptian city of Rafah.

Waleed Mohammed Aeid, a resident of the central al-Maghazi refugee camp, expressed his anguish and outrage after the attack on Sunday that claimed the lives of at least 70 people.

“They told us to go to Rafah, but we don’t want to,” he said. “Why? To move there and live on the streets?

“Everyone in this neighborhood was evacuated. We didn’t flee when they attacked the school because we had nowhere else to go.”

After years of devastating isolation, Israel imposed a siege on October 7, depriving Gazans of fuel, food, water, and medical supplies.

Only seldom have humanitarian relief convoys, mostly via Egypt, helped to alleviate the acute shortages.

Israel said on Thursday that it has granted Cyprus’ request for a “maritime lifeline” to transport supplies to Gaza preliminary approval.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Lior Haiat said, “There’s a basic authorization to use this route, but there are some logistical issues that need to be resolved.”

Iman al-Masry, 28, one of the many displaced Palestinians, recently gave birth to quadruplets in southern Gaza after escaping her house in the severely damaged north.

She said that the difficult travel “affected my pregnancy” and that on December 18, she gave birth by C-section to two boys and two girls, one of whom was too sick to leave the hospital.

She remarked, “They are very slim,” when at a Deir al-Balah schoolroom that had been converted into a refuge. “There’s no bathtub, it’s windy and chilly outside… I just make use of wipes.”

Tensions in the Middle East increase

The health ministry of the region reports that since October 7, at least 314 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli troops or settlers in the Israel-occupied West Bank, where violence has also increased.

Overnight, Israeli troops raided currency exchange locations across the West Bank, alleging that the establishments had been funding armed organizations.

The health ministry reports that one guy was killed by the forces in Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority, while another was shot close to Bethlehem later on.

A UN study called on Israel to “end unlawful killings” of Palestinians, citing a sharp decline in the region’s human rights situation.

Tensions between Israel and Iran, its longstanding arch enemy that supplies armed organizations across the Middle East, have also drastically increased as a result of the worst Gaza war in history.

Iran held Israel accountable for the Monday missile attack in Syria that killed Razi Moussavi, the country’s top military commander. On Thursday, a large-scale burial was held in Tehran.

After supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei conducted a prayer over Moussavi’s corpse, the audience screamed “Death to Israel” and “Death to America.” Moussavi was a prominent commander of the Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Since the US murder of Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, in 2020, Tehran has pledged to exact revenge for the passing of the highest ranking Guards commander.

Since the start of the Gaza conflict, Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have engaged in intense cross-border gunfire in Lebanon. Israel has threatened to escalate military action if Hezbollah terrorists do not retreat farther from the border.

Hezbollah called on the people living in southern Lebanon to turn off their CCTV cameras after accusing Israel of breaking into security systems outside houses and businesses.

The Huthi rebel group in Yemen, another supporter of Iran, has repeatedly attacked Israel with drones and missiles that have been intercepted. International commerce has been disrupted by its targeting of ships in the Red Sea.