LIVE - Gaza: Hamas says more than 60 killed in 'intense' Israeli strikes

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: AFP 10:19 a.m., January 15, 2024, modified at 10:20 a.m., January 15, 2024

More than 60 Palestinians were killed across the Gaza Strip in "intense" Israeli shelling carried out overnight Sunday, according to a statement from the Hamas government. "More than 60 martyrs and dozens wounded in new massacres committed last night and at dawn by the occupation forces," the Hamas government press office wrote. According to the text, the strikes and artillery shelling targeted the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army is now concentrating its offensive, as well as other areas of the besieged territory.

Information to follow:

• More than 60 Palestinians were killed in "intense" Israeli shelling on Sunday night
• The war between Israel and Hamas has passed the 100-day mark
• Hamas released a video showing three Israeli hostages alive, without giving any indication of when it was filmed

The War Passes the 100-Day Milestone

The war between Israel and Hamas passed the 100-day mark on Sunday, with more civilians killed in Gaza and relatives of Israeli hostages still in anguish over their fate. The Israeli army on Sunday again bombed the Gaza Strip, whose population is experiencing a major humanitarian crisis, while the ongoing conflict exacerbates regional tensions.

Israelis on Sunday expressed solidarity with hostages held in the Palestinian territory by Hamas and its allies to mark 100 days of their detention and support the mobilization of their families. But Hamas' military wing spokesman Abu Obeida said in the evening that many of the hostages had "probably been killed recently," with the rest "in great danger," for which he blamed Israel "fully."

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Hamas' military-terrorist wing later released a video showing three Israeli hostages alive, two men and a woman. This video gives no indication of when it was filmed. In it, the three hostages asked the Israeli authorities in Hebrew to act for their release. The return of the hostages is one of the objectives of Israel's war after the unprecedented Hamas attack on its soil on October 7, which killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on the Israeli death toll.

Some 250 people were taken hostage in the attack, and 132 remain in Gaza, at least 25 of whom are believed to have been killed, according to Israeli authorities. About 2007 were released under a truce at the end of November. In retaliation, Israel has vowed to annihilate Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 23 and is classified as a terrorist group like the United States and the European Union. In the Gaza Strip, the conflict has killed at least 968,<> people, mostly women and minors, according to the latest toll from Hamas' Health Ministry.

"We don't abandon anyone"

Hundreds of thousands of Israelis observed a 100-minute strike in the morning, as many as the days the hostages were held, the Histadrut trade union federation announced. In Tel Aviv, in the rain, hundreds of people took part in a series of events, including a concert by Artifex, the last DJ to play at the Tribe of Nova festival - 364 of whose participants were killed by Hamas according to Israeli figures. "One hundred days and they're still abandoned there... One hundred days and there's no sign of him coming back," said Amit Zach, a graphic designer.

Bashir al-Zayadna, 27, whose uncle and cousin, Youssef and Hamza al-Zayadna, 53 and 22, are hostages, said he hoped for only one thing: to be able to hug them and "tell them that it is all over". "We don't abandon anyone. We are doing everything we can to bring them all home," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting.

The 'hardest' war

According to Hamas, more than 100 people were killed in the overnight Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, including in Khan Younis. The Israeli army says it is now concentrating its operations on the town in the southern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting are massed. It announced the death of one soldier on Sunday, bringing to 188 the number of soldiers killed since the start of ground operations in Gaza on October 27.

In the besieged territory, the 2.4 million inhabitants lack everything, including food, medicine and fuel. The UN estimates that 1.9 million people have been forced to flee their homes. In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Liga Jabr, a teenager in 1948, says she remembers the "Nakba", the "catastrophe" that was for Palestinians when about 760,000 of them were displaced and expelled from their land when the State of Israel was created.

But "this war is harder than all the displacements" it has experienced, she told AFP. A 28-year-old Palestinian video journalist with the Cairo-based Al-Ghad Arabic TV channel was killed on Sunday "in northern Gaza," the outlet said, blaming his death on an Israeli strike.

Regional tensions

The conflict is also fueling regional violence with armed groups supporting Hamas. The Israeli military said on Sunday it had killed three gunmen who had infiltrated its territory in the border region with Lebanon, where two Israeli civilians, a mother and her son, were also killed in a missile strike from the neighboring country. Lebanon's pro-Iranian Hezbollah said it had carried out six attacks on Israeli soil, including one on the village of the two victims. Exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces have been a daily occurrence since 7 October.

The leader of Lebanon's powerful Islamist movement, Hassan Nasrallah, said Sunday that Israel had "achieved no real or semblance of victory" in Gaza. Tensions have also escalated in the Red Sea, where Iran-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels are attacking ships believed to be linked to Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. The U.S. and U.K. carried out retaliatory strikes against Houthi sites on Friday and Saturday.

Houthi media reported on Sunday night that there had been new Anglo-American strikes on Hodeidah, but Washington immediately denied it. In the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army reported the arrest of two sisters of Hamas' second-in-command Saleh al-Arouri, who was killed on January 2 in Lebanon in a drone strike attributed to the Israeli army, for "incitement to terrorism."

Five Palestinians died there on Sunday after clashes with the Israeli army, including a 16-year-old boy killed near Jericho, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Israeli forces said they had "neutralized two terrorists" near Hebron and "two assailants" who had thrown an explosive at a military base near Ramallah.