Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned yesterday Monday that there will be no peace until the Gaza Strip is “demilitarized” and after “Palestinian society is “deradicalized”, while he announced that operations will be intensified to “destroy” Hamas in the Palestinian enclave. .

Despite international calls for a ceasefire, no respite in sightafter more than two months of war, triggered by the unprecedented attack by the military arm of the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli territory on October 7.

“We will not stop (…) we will intensify the fighting in the coming days. This will be a long war,” Mr Netanyahu said after visiting soldiers in the Gaza Strip.

From the opinion columns of the American newspaper Wall Street Journal, the Israeli prime minister defined three “prerequisites” for peace.

“Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarized and Palestinian society must be de-radicalized,” he enumerated.

Preventing arms trafficking will “require the creation of a temporary security zone around the perimeter of Gaza,” Mr. Netanyahu also said, ruling out handing over the administration of the enclave to the Palestinian Authority, which he accuses of “funding and glorifying terrorism” in the occupied West Bank.

For “the near future,” Israel will assume “primary responsibility for security in Gaza,” from which it unilaterally withdrew in 2005 after 38 years of occupation, he reiterated.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Mr Netanyahu also said he was willing to encourage voluntary migration of Palestinians outside the Gaza Strip.

The “problem,” he told parliamentarians of his Likud party, “is not whether we should allow the exodus, but whether there will be a country willing to absorb” the population that will leave, according to Haaretz information.

“Ridiculous Plan”

Hamas reacted by calling this statement a “ridiculous plan”.

The Palestinians, she emphasized, “refuse to be deported and displaced”, they will not accept “exile” and “there is no other choice but to remain on our land”, she emphasized in a statement in an angry tone.

According to the latest tally by the Hamas Health Ministry, 20,674 people, the vast majority of them women and children, have been killed in Israeli military operations, while nearly 55,000 have been wounded.

The attack, the deadliest ever launched by Israel against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, followed an October 7 attack on southern sectors of the Israeli territory that killed some 1,140 people, the deadliest by the state since 1948. .Palestinian militants also kidnapped some 250 people that day, more than 120 of whom remain captive in the Palestinian enclave.

That war also forced 1.9 million residents of the small area where Hamas has ruled since 2007 — in other words, 85 percent of the population — to flee their homes, according to the UN.

The weekend was particularly bloody.

Bombing yesterday evening Sunday killed at least 70 people in the al-Maghazi refugee camp (center), according to the Hamas Health Ministry.

The Israeli army, which assures that it is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, said it was “verifying the incident”.

“They tell us to go south, to go north, to go to the center (…) They are lying to us, there is no safe area in the Gaza Strip,” enraged Abu Rami Abu al-Ais, a resident of the camp. “They played kids. What did the innocent children do to them?’

Dozens of lifeless bodies in white burial bags were strewn on the floor at al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Bala, in the central Gaza Strip, ahead of funerals.

“Heartbreaking Narratives”

A team from the World Health Organization (WHO) heard “heartbreaking accounts” on Monday at a hospital in the Gaza Strip where victims of the bombing in al-Maghazi refugee camp were treated, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the UN health agency, said via X ( of the former Twitter).

“This latest raid on a community in the Gaza Strip shows why we need a ceasefire now,” he insisted.

Various UN agencies are constantly warning that a humanitarian disaster is underway. Most hospitals have been shut down and within the next six weeks, the enclave’s entire population (2.4 million) will face acute food insecurity as a famine, they explain.

Unless hostilities stop, distributing adequate food aid is nearly impossible, UN agencies add. An argument rejected by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, for whom “the behavior of the UN is shameful”.

Despite the decision taken by the UN Security Council on Friday calling for the “immediate” distribution of humanitarian aid “on a large scale” to the population of the enclave, no significant increase has been recorded so far.

The Israeli prime minister is frowned upon

In Israel, the pressure to hold negotiations for the release of the hostages continues. Yesterday, Mr Netanyahu was repeatedly booed during a speech in parliament by family members, who shouted “now!”

“What if he was your own son? , “80 days, every minute is hell,” one read on banners and placards held by relatives.

There was also a demonstration in Tel Aviv.

Hamas, labeled a “terrorist” organization by Israel, the US and the EU, is demanding an end to hostilities before new negotiations can be held to release hostages.

Despite the intransigence of the two sides, the mediators, Egypt and Qatar, are still trying to reach a compromise to declare a new truce, such as the one lasting a week in late November, which allowed the release of 105 hostages and, in return, 240 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli prisons.

High-ranking Iranian officer is killed in Syria

Last night, the Israeli military said it had located the family car of a former hostage who was kidnapped on October 7 and “accidentally” killed this month by his own men.

According to Chahal, it was inside the Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern part of the enclave. This reveals the hospital’s “direct connection to the barbaric events of October 7,” he argued, as he accused Hamas of using hospitals as “command centers.”

The Israeli military says its casualties since it began ground operations nearly two months ago on October 27 stand at 156.

For his part, the leader of Hamas in the enclave, Yahya Sinwar, gives a number orders of magnitude higher, he estimates that Chahal’s losses are more than 5,000, if the dead (at least 1,600) and wounded (another 3,400) are added.

Beyond the Gaza Strip, the risk of war spreading remains high, with exchanges of fire practically daily on the Lebanon/Israel border, Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea, attacks on US troops in Iraq…

Tensions escalated yesterday, with Iran accusing Israel of killing a senior Revolutionary Guards officer stationed in Syria. According to this elite body, it was Brigadier General Razi Mousavi. He was responsible for the logistics of the “axis of resistance”, which includes, in addition to Iran, the Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis.

Asked about this blow, the Israeli army refused to make any comment.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raishi, however, warned that Israel “will pay” for “this crime”.