Photo: Menahem Kahana Agence France-Presse Israeli soldiers carry the coffin of a comrade killed the day before in combat in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday at the Mount Herzl military cemetery.
Adel Zaanoun – Agence France-Presse and Chloé Rouveyrolles-Bazire – Agence France-Presse respectively in the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem
09:27
- Middle East
Israel announced on Tuesday the death of 24 soldiers in Gaza the day before, its heaviest military loss in one day since the start of its ground offensive in the Palestinian territory, as pressure increases on its government for a truce in the war against Hamas.
According to Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari, 21 “reservists” died on Monday when two buildings they were mining in the south of the Gaza Strip collapsed after a rocket attack. against a nearby tank.
With the deaths of three more soldiers in a separate incident, Israel recorded its heaviest daily casualty since October 27, bringing its total military death toll to 221.
It’s a “hard blow,” admitted Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing the opening of an investigation into the “disaster” of the deaths of the reservists .
In Jerusalem, more than 200 people attended the funeral of one of the victims, Hadar Kapeluk, on Tuesday. His coffin was carried by soldiers and covered with an Israeli flag, among freshly closed graves covered with wreaths of chrysanthemums.
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Khan Younès “surrounded”
The war was sparked by Hamas' unprecedented October 7 attack on Israeli soil, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Some 250 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, including around a hundred released at the end of November during a truce in exchange for Palestinian prisoners. According to the same count, 132 hostages are still in the territory, of which 28 are believed to have died.
Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a massive military operation that killed 25,490 Palestinians — the vast majority women, children and teenagers — according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
On the 109th day of the war, Israeli forces announced Tuesday that they had “surrounded” Khan Younes, the main town in the south of the territory and the hometown of Yahya Sinouar, the Gaza leader of Hamas, considered to be the 'architect of the October 7 attack.
Witnesses reported Israeli artillery fire near the Nasser hospital and the Palestinian Red Crescent accused the Israeli army of targeting its headquarters in this town, and injuring people taking refuge in the compound. 'hospital.
The small, besieged and devastated Palestinian territory is threatened with “imminent famine”, the UN denounced in Geneva, while at least 1.7 of the 2.4 million inhabitants have fled their home, many massing in the south where they live in precarious conditions. Gazans are also facing a new Internet and telephone outage.
2 month break against hostages ?
The continuation of the conflict and its human cost are increasing pressure on the Israeli government to negotiate a new truce with Hamas, and prepare for the post-war in the coastal strip.< /p>
In Israel, “people will demand clear answers about the reasons and the purpose of this operation in Gaza,” Israela Oron, a security expert at Ben-Gurion University, told AFP.
According to the American news site Axios, Israel proposed to Hamas, via the mediation of Egypt and Qatar, a pause in two months in military operations in Gaza for an exchange between Palestinian prisoners and all hostages, living and deceased.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who rejects the idea of an end to the fighting, spoke on Monday with the hostages' relatives of an Israeli “initiative” but without details, according to the local press.
Qatar, which played the role of mediator in a previous truce agreement and release of detainees, disputed this information on Tuesday. The leaks to the media are incomplete “or completely false”, affirmed the spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Majed al-Ansari, without wanting to say more about the negotiations which are continuing, according to him, with “force”. .
The Israeli government also refuses to discuss a “two-state solution” for lasting peace, with an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel, irritating the international community.
“Weakening” the Houthis
The conflict is also exacerbating tensions between Israel and Hamas's pro-Iran allies in the region.
Lebanese Hezbollah announced that it had fired missiles on Tuesday at the Meron military base in northern Israel, already targeted in early January after the elimination in Lebanon, attributed to Israel, of Hamas' number two in Lebanon.< /p>
The United States and the United Kingdom carried out new strikes against Houthi sites in Yemen during the night from Monday to Tuesday, to “weaken” the military arsenal of these rebels who are increasing attacks on merchant ships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, disrupting international trade.
“These attacks will not go unanswered and unpunished,” responded Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree.