Israel's war in Gaza, breaking news | Israel says its ground troops are fighting "in the heart" of Hamas strongholds in Gaza

Highlights: Israel's war in Gaza reaches the Congress of Deputies, where the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, appears on the subject. Albares stresses that the "innocent victims" on the Palestinian side and on the Israeli side are "equally unbearable" The European Commission warns of the "enormous risk" of Christmas attacks in the EU due to the war between Israel and Hamas. The PP warns Sánchez that Israel and Gaza "are not comparable enemies" and cannot "impose" the Palestinian state.

Israel's war in Gaza reaches the Congress of Deputies, where the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, appears on the subject of the

Israel-Hamas War Israel Expands Ground Operation in Southern Gaza Strip
War Israel - Hamas Albares defends Spain's position in the conflict in Gaza despite the diplomatic crisis with Israel

Israel's war in Gaza reaches the Congress of Deputies, where the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, appears on the diplomatic crisis between Spain and Israel. In his first speech - interrupted for two minutes by the pro-Palestinian shouts of two people who were in the guest gallery - Albares stressed that the "innocent victims" on the Palestinian side and on the Israeli side are "equally unbearable".

On the ground, Israel intensified the war in Gaza on Tuesday with bombings and evacuation orders in Khan Younis. It is the second largest city in the Palestinian Strip and is located in the southern part of the enclave. This is motivating that, despite the criticism of international organizations, the same pattern as in the northern zone is repeated: high number of victims, buildings reduced to rubble and thousands of displaced people who have nowhere to turn.

Paradoxically, Israel's war in Gaza marks the reappearance on the international scene of Russian President Putin, the architect and protagonist of his ownwar in Ukraine.

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16:48

The European Commission warns of the "enormous risk" of Christmas attacks in the EU due to the war between Israel and Hamas

The European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Yiva Johansson, warned on Tuesday of the "enormous risk" of possible attacks in the European Union during Christmas due to the polarisation in society due to the war between Israel and Hamas.

"With the war between Israel and Hamas and the polarization it causes in our society with the upcoming Christmas season, there is a huge risk of terrorist attacks in the European Union as we saw recently in Paris," Johansson told reporters on arrival at the European Home Affairs Council.

That risk of attacks, such as the one that cost the life of a German tourist and injured two more people in the center of Paris, is one of the topics on the agenda of the meeting of interior ministers being held in Brussels today, and which will be the last in this format during the Spanish presidency of the Council of the EU that ends on December 31.

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16:37

The PP warns Sánchez that Israel and Hamas "are not comparable enemies" and cannot "impose" the Palestinian state

The deputy secretary of Institutional Affairs of the PP, Esteban González Pons, warned the head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, on Tuesday that Israel and Hamas "are not comparable enemies" because "one is a state as democratic" as the Spanish one and the other "a murderous gang". That said, he said that the PSOE and Sumar government cannot "pretend to impose the Palestinian state" without it being part of an agreement with Israel.

In the debate in Congress to address the situation in the Middle East, González Pons has criticized the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, for having tried to put "common places to political improvisation" during his parliamentary appearance. "But recognize that the government must have been very clumsy in something, at least from a diplomatic point of view, for Hamas to thank the president for his clear and bold stance, according to the terrorists," he said.

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16:20

Israel says its ground troops are already fighting "in the heart" of Hamas strongholds in Gaza

The Israeli military claimed on Tuesday that it had reached the center of three major Hamas strongholds in Gaza: the Jabalia refugee camp in the north; the Shujaiya neighborhood in Gaza City; and the city of Khan Younis, in the south, where troops are currently bursting onto the ground in a new phase of their offensive.

"We are in the heart of Jabalia, in the heart of Shujaiya and now also in the heart of Khan Younis," where troops are fighting "intense battles" in these areas, which he described as "Hamas strongholds," Yaron Finkelman, commander of the army's Southern Command, said in a statement.

According to him, it is "the most intense day" of military action since the start of the ground operation on October 27, either "in terms of terrorists killed, armed clashes and the use of firepower from the ground and air."

According to the Gaza authorities, the Israeli bombardment of Shujaiya yesterday left at least three hundred people dead. In turn, in the last 24 hours, Israeli troops surrounded the Jabalia refugee camp in the north, which they consider "a Hamas stronghold," destroying numerous terrorist infrastructures.

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15:59

Lebanese soldier killed by Israeli shelling

A Lebanese soldier was killed and three others wounded on Tuesday in an Israeli bombardment of a military position in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said. Since the conflict between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel began on 7 October, there has been a common exchange of fire and incidents on the Israeli-Lebanese border between Israeli forces, on the one hand, and Palestinian groups and the Lebanese pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement on the other.

The deceased soldier is the first to be lost by the Lebanese armed forces in this cycle of violence. In a statement, the Lebanese army, deployed along the border area in the south, indicates that one of its military posts in the Aadaisé region "was bombed by the Israeli enemy", and details that this attack "killed one soldier and wounded three others".

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15:46

Two pro-Palestinian activists evicted from the rostrum of Congress for their cries against Israel while Albares appeared

Two pro-Palestinian activists, a man and a woman, were evicted from the gallery of the Congress of Deputies on Tuesday for displaying Palestinian flags and shouting against Israel during the appearance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares.

Albares had barely 10 minutes of speaking before the Plenary of Congress in the appearance, at his own request and that of the Popular Party, to give an account of the position of the Government of Spain on the war in Gaza, when he was interrupted by shouts from the guest gallery of the Chamber.

A man and a woman erupted in shouts such as "Long live freedom," "Down with Zionism" and called Israel terrorist while waving Palestinian flags. The minister remained silent and the president of the Congress, Francina Armengol, warned the guests that it was not allowed to launch proclamations or display flags from the rostrum of the Chamber. After almost two tense minutes in which the screams of the two activists could not be heard stopped, the ushers of the Congress managed to reduce the two people, took them out of the hemicycle and Albares continued with his initial intervention before the parliamentary groups.

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15:40

Albares says the "innocent victims" of Israel and Palestinians are "equally unbearable"

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, has said that the "innocent victims" caused by the terrorist group Hamas on October 7 and those caused by Israel in the Gaza Strip are "equally unbearable".

"The innocent victims of October 7 and the innocent Palestinian victims are all equally unbearable," said the minister in his opening speech before the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies to address the situation in the Middle East.

Albares stressed that "the more than 1,200 Israeli victims of the terrorist attack are unbearable" as are "the thousands and thousands of Palestinian civilian victims, the displaced Gazans, the large number of homes and essential infrastructure destroyed and damaged".

Thus, the minister stressed that "International Humanitarian Law requires that at all times a distinction be made between terrorist objectives and the civilian population".

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