Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich advocates a return of Jewish settlers to the Palestinian enclave to encourage Gazans to emigrate to other countries.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich believes that Palestinians must be “encouraged” to emigrate to other countries. He said in an interview with Army Radio on Sunday, December 31, that he would like to see Jewish settlers move back into the Gaza Strip. “To have security, we must control the territory and to control the territory militarily in the long term, we need a civilian presence,” he said. The Palestinian enclave was liberated from the Israeli presence in 2005, when the Jewish state recalled its army and its approximately 8,000 settlers. “We will help rehabilitate these refugees in other countries in an appropriate and humane manner, with the cooperation of the international community and Arab countries around us,” he added. Last March, the minister visiting Paris denied the existence of a Palestinian people: “There are no Palestinians because there is no Palestinian people.”
The Israeli army announced that it had flushed out and destroyed one of the residences of the leader of Hamas’s armed wing, Yehya al-Sinwar, on Friday, December 29. The house was located near Gaza City, in the north of the Palestinian enclave. Yehya al-Sinwar was probably not inside, he would have fled to Khan Younes, in the north of the Gaza Strip, at the start of the conflict. The IDF assured that the destroyed house was connected to a tunnel 20 meters deep and 218 meters long which was powered by electricity and air-conditioned. Considered the commander of the armed wing of the Palestinian terrorist movement, along with Mohammed Deif, Al-Sinwar is also believed to be the organizer of the October 7 massacre in Israel.
As Israeli army strikes continue across the Gaza Strip, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) has once again denounced the conditions for aid delivery humanitarian aid to Gazans, Friday December 29. The situation is increasingly dire in the Palestinian enclave which has some 2.4% inhabitants, 85% of whom have been displaced by bombings according to the UN. In the south of the territory, “the traumatized” and “exhausted” population is piling up on “an increasingly small plot of land”, assured the head of UN humanitarian operations, Martin Griffiths, on X, Friday . “The quantity of aid delivered, necessary and urgent, continues to be limited and encounters numerous logistical obstacles,” lamented the Commissioner General of UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini.
Emmanuel Macron spoke by telephone with Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, as part of the Christmas celebrations. During this interview, the French president expressed his “deep concern about the dramatic situation in the Latin parish of Gaza.” This Friday, December 22, two Christian women, a mother and her daughter, were killed by an Israeli soldier in front of the only Catholic church in Gaza. In the Holy Land, in Bethlehem in the West Bank, Christmas festivities were canceled in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, a surprising fact for this municipality where Jesus was born, according to the Bible. A decision heavy with symbolism to denounce “the silence of the world”, according to the religious authorities of the region. The Grotto of the Nativity was therefore empty this Sunday, December 24, although it is usually visited by many pilgrims at this time. The Christmas tree traditionally installed on site is also not present this year.
For its part, the IDF announces that 152 of its soldiers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. On Saturday, December 23, nine Israeli soldiers died in the enclave. “We have no choice but to continue fighting,” declared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to him, “the war will be long.”
The Israeli army called on residents of the central Gaza Strip to evacuate to prevent further bombings. The IDF asked Gazans to head towards Deir Al-Balah, located between the towns of Gaza and Rafah, where a UN aid center is located, after declaring that it would intensify its strikes against the Hamas. The Arabic-speaking IDF spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, also announced that a ceasefire was in place in the western district of Rafah, in a statement published on X (formerly Twitter). A “tactical, local and temporary suspension” planned “from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.”, Sunday, December 24, and which will allow the supply of humanitarian aid.
The UN Security Council was due to vote on Tuesday, December 19, on a new text aimed at improving the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave. The vote was postponed once again, after long and futile negotiations. A next text was proposed on Friday December 22.
Several raids carried out by the Israeli army have sparked strong reactions and criticism, all focused on the significant number of civilians among the Palestinian victims – more than 19,450 according to the latest report from the Hamas Health Ministry. The head of European diplomacy also denounced “a distressing lack of discernment in Israel’s military operations in Gaza” on Monday, recalling that three hostages were killed “by mistake” by the IDF on December 15. “This must stop, an urgent humanitarian pause is necessary” added the diplomat.
The United States, Israel’s historic ally, is also beginning to exert pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, particularly in relation to the insufficient actual arrival of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip. The pressures are not only political, civilians and families of the hostages are also calling on the Israeli Prime Minister to slow down or stop military operations, messages seeming to reflect indignation after the deaths of hostages caused by the IDF or by the attack on Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza during the weekend. To this Benyamin Netanyahu and the Israeli army responded by promising to fight “until the end” for the release of the hostages and by assuring that Hamas had established itself in the medical establishment. The IDF also expressed the refocusing carried out among its soldiers after the tragic death of the three hostages.
Israel must also respond to serious accusations like those of the NGO Human Rights Watch which writes in a report published this Monday, December 18 that the Israeli government is deliberately starving Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: according to it, Israel “uses the starvation of civilians as a technique of war in the occupied Gaza Strip, which constitutes a war crime.” Faced with these accusations, the Israeli government described the NGO as an “anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli organization.”
In other accusations, some claim that the Israeli army buried Palestinians alive in the courtyard of Kamal Adwan hospital according to witnesses cited by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. The Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank has called for an international investigation into the latest accusations. In the West Bank, it is also the violent actions of Israeli settlers that attract attention. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, who was traveling to Israel on December 17, denounced “serious acts which undermine the prospect of a political solution” and “which perhaps can push for new developments and a destabilization of the West Bank, which is, once again, not in Israel’s best interests.
The Israeli army announced on Friday, December 15, that the body of Franco-Israeli Elya Toledano had been found and brought back to Israel. The 28-year-old was attending the Tribe of Nova music festival on October 7 when he was kidnapped by Hamas along with his friend Mia Shem who was released on November 30. Some 240 people were reportedly kidnapped that day. Three other hostages were killed on Friday December 15 by the Israeli army “by mistake”. There would therefore remain 132 people held hostage by Hamas.
In one week of truce, 105 hostages were released by Hamas in addition to around twenty foreigners and dual nationals working in Israel in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. This is more than what was provided for in the initial agreement with 50 hostages returned against 150 prisoners. 49 women, 28 men, all adults, and 33 minors were released. 138 hostages, including 20 women and two children, are still in the hands of Hamas, according to the Israeli Prime Minister’s office, Tuesday, December 5. A number reduced to 136 after the discovery of the bodies of two hostages, those of Eden Zakaria and soldier Ziv Dado, by the Israeli army on December 12.
The latest releases occurred on Thursday, November 30 with the release of eight hostages including a Franco-Israeli, the young woman Mia Schem. Before her, three Franco-Israeli children aged 12 to 16 had been released by Hamas: Eitan Yahalomi as well as Sahar (16) and her brother Erez Kalderon (12). These releases were welcomed by the authorities, but the Prime Minister recalled that “four of our compatriots are still hostages” and that “their release is our absolute priority.”
Before the end of the truce, Hamas said it was ready to extend the duration of the humanitarian pause to free more hostages and find more Palestinian prisoners. On November 29, a senior official in Hamas’s political office, Ghazi Hamad, said on behalf of the Islamist group that it was seeking to expand the terms of the initial agreement so that hostages other than women and children would be released. An agreement that never saw the light of day.
The results of the war taking place in Gaza are difficult to establish, as the figures provided by Hamas cannot be independently verified and therefore distinguished from propaganda. According to the latest report from the Hamas Health Ministry, 19,453 people have been killed in the Gaza Strip since the conflict began on October 7. The Palestinian movement also reported more than 50,000 injured. Questioned about this toll several weeks ago, the Pentagon spokesperson admitted that, concerning civilian victims in Gaza, “it [had] to be counted in the thousands.”
On the Israeli side, the death toll from the Hamas attack was revised downwards on Friday, November 10, from 1,400 to 1,200 dead. According to the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after identification of the bodies, it appeared that many of them belonged to Hamas men. On Wednesday, December 13, the Israeli army also clarified that 115 soldiers have died since the attack on October 7, according to its latest report.
On the French side, 40 people were killed in Israel during Hamas attacks on October 7, according to the latest report communicated by Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne on Monday November 6. While eight French people had been missing since October 7, Monday November 27, three young Franco-Israeli people were released by Hamas. A fourth hostage, young Mia Scham, was released on November 30.
The conditions in which Gazans live worsen with each new day of war. The humanitarian aid delivered to the enclave has been insufficient since the start of the conflict, even during the week of truce the quantity of aid was not enough to meet all the needs in food, water, care or fuel. Since the resumption of fighting on December 1, the entry of humanitarian aid has become more difficult again.
This lack of food poses a significant risk of famine over the Gaza Strip. And to this is added a high risk of an “explosive epidemic of infectious diseases” according to the WHO, which has counted hundreds of thousands of cases of acute respiratory infections and thousands of cases of scabies, jaundice and even chickenpox. . The spread of infectious diseases has even “intensified” according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The fault lies in the forced exodus of Gazans who had to take refuge in the south and where the high population density “increases the pressure on a dying health system”. The humanitarian situation is such that children in the Gaza Strip “are as likely to die from bombs as from diarrhea or hunger, or even because they sleep in the street in the rain,” underlined Gloria Doñate, the director of the development and quality program in the occupied Palestinian territories for the NGO Save the Children, speaking to franceinfo on December 8.
