On Sunday, Israel continued its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, where the war against the Palestinian movement Hamas, now in its 100th day, has plunged the population of the enclave into a serious humanitarian crisis and raised fears of a regional conflagration, writes AFP.

“No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the “Axis of Evil”, not anyone else,” Benjamin Netanyahu emphasized on Saturday evening, who rejected the charges against his country of genocide at the International Court of Justice (IC) in The Hague. , which is mentioned in South Africa.

Israel also faces attacks on its northern border from the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah, which is part of an “axis of resistance” created by Iran and includes armed groups hostile to Israel and its ally the United States.

The war began on October 7 with an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli territory in the Gaza Strip, which killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli data.

According to the Israeli authorities, about 250 people were taken hostage during the attack. About 100 were released under a truce in late November, and relatives of those still held continue to press for their release.

In response to the attack, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

Hamas authorities report almost 24,000 killed

According to the latest figures from the Hamas Health Ministry, the continuous shelling and shooting in this narrow strip of land has killed at least 23,968 people, mostly women, teenagers and children.

As an AFP correspondent discovered, thick clouds of smoke rose over the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younes on Sunday morning.

According to the Hamas government press office, more than 100 people were killed in overnight Israeli shelling throughout the area, including Khan Younes.

The al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed to have destroyed an Israeli tank, saying the fighting was mainly in al-Maghazi, Deir al-Balah (center) and Khan Younes.

In recent days, the Israeli military said it had focused its operations against Hamas in the last city in the south of the territory, where hundreds of thousands of civilians had gathered fleeing massive bombings in the north of the territory at the beginning of the war.

On Sunday, it announced the death of another soldier from its forces, bringing to 188 the number of soldiers killed since the ground operation in Gaza began on October 27.

UN: An entire generation of Gaza children is “traumatized”

Israel’s blockade, reinforced by the war, is causing severe food and fuel shortages throughout the Gaza Strip.

“The enormous death toll, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss and pain of the past 100 days have stained our common humanity,” said the head of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Philip Lazzarini, during a visit to the besieged coastal area.

According to him, a whole generation of children in Gaza is “traumatized”, diseases are spreading and “hunger” is severe.

Rain and cold make daily survival difficult for families camping in the courtyard of the Al Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Yunis.

According to UN estimates, 1.9 million people, almost 85% of the population, were forced to leave their homes. Many of them find refuge in the south of the territory, although the local Ministry of Health still says that there is no infrastructure to accommodate them.

In addition, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), less than half of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are even partially functional.

Two al-Aruri sisters arrested in the West Bank

The Israeli military also said on Sunday it had killed “four terrorists” who entered Israel from southern Lebanon.

Fire was exchanged between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on an almost daily basis after October 7.

In the occupied West Bank, where violence has intensified, the Israeli military announced the arrest of two sisters of Saleh al-Aruri, Hamas’s number two, killed on January 2 in Lebanon in a drone attack attributed to the Israeli military, on charges of “inciting terrorism.” .

Mobilization in Israel for the release of hostages from the hands of Hamas

In Israel, families and relatives of hostages continue to mobilize for the return of their loved ones, trying to put pressure on the government. –

Hundreds of thousands of people went on a 100-minute strike this morning to mark 100 days of hostage-taking, the Histadrut trade union said.

“We are here to remind the whole world that 136 men and women who were brutally kidnapped are still held captive (…) in Gaza, in tunnels and basements,” its leader Arnon Bar-David said at a rally in Tel Aviv.

Dozens of people gathered in the square, which was renamed the “hostage square”, some carried yellow balloons, the color that has become a symbol of the captives, others carried signs with their photos.