LIVE - In southern Gaza, 'intensive phase' of fighting comes to an end, says Israel

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: ALBERTO PIZZOLI / AFP 10:14 a.m., January 16, 2024, modified at 10:16 a.m., January 16, 2024

During the night, the Israeli plane bombed the area of Khan Younis (south), the epicenter of ground fighting and air raids in recent weeks, where the army says the local Hamas leadership is hiding. According to the Palestinian Islamist movement's press office, Israeli strikes across Gaza left a total of 78 people dead and many wounded in the evening and night.

Key takeaways:

• The Israeli plane bombed the Khan Younis area overnight and killed a total of 78 people, according to Hamas
• "The intensive phase of operations," according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, "in northern Gaza is coming to an end"
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has renewed his call for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire", which he says is necessary to ensure humanitarian aid
• Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced early Tuesday that they had launched several salvos of ballistic missiles into Syria and especially near Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, claiming to have destroyed a "spy" center attributed to Israel

The intensive phase is "coming to an end"

At the start of the war, which reached its 100th day on Sunday, "we made it clear that the intensive phase of operations would last approximately three months," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said. "In northern Gaza, this phase is coming to an end. In the south, we will achieve this and it will end soon," Gallant added, claiming that Hamas' Khan Younis Brigade was "disintegrating."

"Our enemies and friends alike are following the war in Gaza and watching us. The future of the State of Israel, here on our land, depends on the outcome of this war," added the minister, whose government had earlier approved an amended budget for 2024, adding $15 billion (€13.7 billion) in spending to deal with the cost of the conflict.

Hamas, for its part, reported on Monday the death of two Israeli hostages, releasing a video showing a young woman - also a hostage and visibly under pressure - announcing the deaths. No indication of the shooting date is given in the video. "They were killed in Zionist bombing of Gaza," Hamas' military-terrorist wing said in a statement. The Israeli army rejected these "lies" and denounced the "brutal use of hostages of innocent people".

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"Risk of famine"?

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has renewed his call for an "immediate humanitarian ceasefire", which he says is necessary to ensure humanitarian aid but also "facilitate the release of hostages". "We continue to call for rapid, safe, unimpeded, widespread, and continuous humanitarian access in and through Gaza," he told reporters, adding that "nothing can justify the collective punishment inflicted on the Palestinian people."

The war was sparked by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel that killed about 1,140 people on the Israeli side, the majority of them civilians killed the same day, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. Some 250 people were taken hostage, and 132 remain in Gaza, at least 25 of whom have been killed, according to recent estimates by the Israeli authorities. About <> were released during a truce at the end of November.

Monday's vehicular attack

Amid the violence, a woman was killed and at least 13 people wounded in a vehicular attack in Ra'anana, Tel Aviv, on Monday, police said, adding that they had arrested two Palestinian suspects. Two young Frenchmen were among the injured, according to Paris. In the Gaza Strip, 24,100 people have been killed by Israeli shelling and military operations, the vast majority of them women, children and teenagers, according to Hamas, which rules Gaza.

However, this number corresponds to 1% of the population of this micro-territory, estimated at about 2.4 million inhabitants who now lack everything and the vast majority of whom have been displaced by air raids and fighting. In a joint statement, UNICEF, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Monday of a "risk of famine" and "epidemics of deadly diseases" in the middle of the cold winter.

"The children are sick all the time. They keep coughing and getting colds, their clothes are not thick enough to warm them," said Raidah Aouad, whose husband, Nabil, lit a fire with firewood and plastic outside their makeshift shelter in Rafah, on the southern tip of Gaza.

Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen: regional tensions

The war is also exacerbating regional tensions between Israel and its allies, and Iran and its "axis of resistance" of armed movements such as the Palestinian Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthi rebels. On the Israeli-Lebanese border, where exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israeli forces are a daily occurrence. And the Israeli army announced overnight new air raids against Hezbollah "positions" in the border town of Maroun ar-Ras.

Off the coast of Yemen, a U.S. cargo ship was hit by a Houthi missile in the Gulf of Aden on Monday. Early Tuesday, Britain's maritime safety agency UKMTO reported a new "incident" in the Red Sea, saying a small aircraft had flown over a ship without causing any damage. At the end of last week, the United States and the United Kingdom bombed Houthi positions in Yemen in an attempt to dissuade them from continuing their attacks in the Red Sea aimed at curbing traffic in this strategic axis in "solidarity" with the Palestinians in Gaza.

And Iran's Revolutionary Guards announced early Tuesday that they had launched several salvos of ballistic missiles into Syria and especially near Erbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan, claiming to have destroyed a "spying" center attributed to Israel by the official IRNA news agency. As of early Tuesday, Israel had not commented on the allegations.