The Israeli military continued to shell Khan Yunis today, the epicenter of hostilities in the southern Gaza Strip, while family members of hostages remaining in the Palestinian enclave appealed to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to strike a deal with Hamas to free them.

Overnight, eyewitnesses spoke of new bloody strikes by the Israeli army in the Khan Younis sector, where fighting is raging between its units and members of Hamas’ military wing.

At the same time, in northern Israel, near the border with Lebanon, air defense sirens sounded in the middle of the night.

Communities in southern Lebanon were hit by Israeli bombardments on Sunday and a Hezbollah fighter was killed, a source close to the Shiite movement, which supports Hamas in its war against Israel, told AFP.

In power in the Gaza Strip since 2007, Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on southern sectors of the Israeli territory on October 7, which claimed to around 1,140 people, mostly civiliansaccording to an AFP tally based on official announcements.

About 250 more people were abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip, of whom about a hundred were released in late November in a Palestinian prisoner swap during a week-long truce. According to Israeli authorities, 132 remain in the enclave, but at least 28 are believed to be dead.

“Mistakes”

Releasing for the first time its “version of events” for October 7, Hamas acknowledged that “mistakes may have been made” in the “chaos” caused by “the sudden collapse of the security apparatus and the army” on the border of its Strip Gaza and Israel.

But he denied targeting civilians deliberately, which happened “by accident during the clashes with the occupation forces”. However, videos have captured Palestinian gunmen shooting indiscriminately.

In retaliation for that attack, Israel’s civil-military leadership vowed to “wipe out” the Palestinian Islamist movement, and its military operations since then, the most extensive ever conducted in the Gaza Strip, have killed at least 25,105 people, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the latest report by the Hamas Health Ministry.

Although in the fourth month of this war Israel says it has been killed “about 20 to 30 percent” of Hamas fighters, falls far short of its stated goal of destroying the Palestinian militant movement, according to US intelligence estimates published by the Wall Street Journal.

According to the newspaper’s information, the US, Qatar and Egypt, the countries that played a mediating role when the short-term truce was declared in November, are trying to convince Israel and Hamas to approve a plan that provides, among other things, for the release of all of the hostages in exchange for the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the Gaza Strip.

“Contract with the country”

Last night, relatives of hostages and sympathizers gathered near Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s official residence in Jerusalem to demand a deal to free them.

“We hear that they are talking about a (s.s. proposal) of the USA, Qatar and Egypt. We demand that our government listen, sit down at the negotiating table and decide to accept this deal or any other deal that would be convenient for Israel,” said Gilad Korenblum, whose son is being held hostage in the Gaza Strip.

“As citizens, we all have a contract with the country. We serve the country, we pay our taxes, we send our children to serve the country. In return for this service and for our taxes, we expect the government to guarantee our safety,” said John Paulin, the father of another hostage.

“On the morning of October 7, this government and this prime minister completely abandoned us (…) We demand that the government play its part, propose an agreement, implement it and bring back the remaining hostages alive,” he added.

French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornou will meet with relatives of hostages today before holding talks with Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galland.

“The Sole Survivor”

As the war enters its 108th day, the humanitarian and health situation in the Gaza Strip is becoming increasingly critical, according to the UN, as 1.7 million people—over 80% of the population—were forced to flee their homes to escape the shelling and fighting.

Abdelrahman Iyad, a wounded man who was taken to the French helicopter-turned-campaign-hospital Dixmude moored in Egypt, was unable to get out when his house was hit.

“When the house was bombed, the explosion threw me against the wall of the neighbors’ house. My foot got caught under a broken ceiling and stone hit me in the head, front and back. I passed out,” he sighs.

“We were together with my parents, my brother, my sister, my second sister, her husband, their daughter. They were all killed. I’m the only survivor.”