Israel-Hamas war updates: Israel rejects truce call and vows to destroy Hamas
Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has outlined his demands before a new truce, while Tel Aviv protests demand the government do whatever it takes to free the hostages. Warning: Graphic
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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip would continue “until we achieve all its aims”, including returning all Israeli hostages and eliminating the Islamist movement.
In his first press conference since the expiry on Friday of a seven-day pause in the fighting with Hamas, he said: “Our soldiers prepared during the days of truce for total victory against Hamas.”
Israel and Hamas brushed off international calls to renew an expired truce Saturday as air strikes pounded militant targets in Gaza and Palestinian groups launched volleys of rockets.
Smoke again clouded the sky over the north of the Palestinian territory, whose Hamas government said 240 people had been killed since a pause in hostilities expired early Friday and combat resumed.
In Israel, the military’s Home Front Command reported 40 missile alerts in the south and centre of the country, and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad announced “rocket barrages” against multiple Israeli cities and towns including Tel Aviv.
“Over 250 rockets have been fired at Israel since Friday morning,” Israeli military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner told reporters.
It comes as Israeli hostages released from Gaza spoke publicly this weekend for the first time and urged their government to secure the release of the remaining captives held in the war-torn Palestinian territory.
The hostages, most of whom were freed during a seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas, spoke in a video broadcast before a crowd of thousands at a rally in central Tel Aviv.
In the brief interviews, four women who were held by Hamas related the fear, hunger, and sleeplessness of their captivity after being taken hostage during the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attacks.
“Our daughters saw things that children at that age -- or of any age -- don’t need to see,” said Danielle Aloni, 45, who was released last week along with her five-year-old daughter.
“The food wasn’t plentiful to start with, and as time passed, the food dwindled,” said 84-year-old Ditza Heiman, who was released Tuesday.
The freed hostages urged the government to take all action necessary to secure the remaining captives’ release.
Yocheved Lifschitz, 85, who was released by Hamas in October, outside the parameters of the truce deal, said “the moral obligation of this government is to bring them home immediately, without hesitation”.
ISRAEL URGED TO PROTECT CIVILIANS
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday urged Israel to protect civilians as it battles Hamas in Gaza, saying that shielding noncombatants is necessary for victory in the urban fight against the Palestinian militant group.
Fighting between Israel and Hamas resumed the day before after a week-long truce between the two sides collapsed, with both sides blaming the other for the breakdown of the deal and the resumption of violence.
Austin told the Reagan National Defense Forum in California that he had “learned a thing or two about urban warfare” while fighting in Iraq and leading the campaign against the Islamic State jihadist group (ISIS).
“Like Hamas, ISIS was deeply embedded in urban areas. And the international coalition against ISIS worked hard to protect civilians and create humanitarian corridors, even during the toughest battles,” Austin said.
“The lesson is not that you can win in urban warfare by protecting civilians. The lesson is that you can only win in urban warfare by protecting civilians,” he said.
‘TERROR TARGETS’ HIT
The Israeli military said Saturday it had attacked more than 400 “terrorist targets” in the Gaza Strip since a pause in the fighting with Hamas ended the day before.
Air, naval and ground forces were involved, it said, adding that fighter jets hit “more than 50 targets in an extensive attack in the Khan Yunis area” in the south of the territory.
Footage of the air strikes is below.
Two mortars were later fired from Lebanon at the northern community of Shomera, and the IDF said it was shelling the source of fire with artillery.
It comes as Israeli air strikes killed two Syrian pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Iran-backed group near Damascus early on Saturday, a war monitor told AFP.
“Two Syrian fighters working for Hezbollah were killed and seven other fighters working for the group were wounded in Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah sites near Sayyida Zeinab,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The US said it is working with regional partners to reach another ceasefire.
“We’re going to continue to work with Israel and Egypt and Qatar on efforts to reimplement the pause,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III said.
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MAP OF EVACUATION ZONES
The Israeli military is starting to use a published map of “evacuation zones” in the Gaza Strip that it said would enable residents to “evacuate from specific places for their safety if required”. The map below has been circulating on social media on Saturday night.
Residents in various areas of Gaza were sent SMS warnings on Friday. Israeli forces “will begin a crushing military attack on your area of residence with the aim of eliminating the terrorist organisation Hamas,” the warnings said.
“Stay away from all military activity of every kind.”
The IDF is beginning to use the evacuation map in the Gaza Strip, calling on Palestinians this morning in northern Gaza's Jalabiya, Shujayya, Zeitoun to evacuate to shelters in the Daraj and Tuffah areas; and in southern Gaza's Khirbat Ikhza'a, Abasan, Bani Suheila, and Ma'an to… pic.twitter.com/Ayihz89wof
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) December 2, 2023
BUIDING STRUCK BY ISRAELI AIRSTRIKES
Footage on X, formerly Twitter, of a building hit by Israeli air strikes in Damascus.
Building struck by Israeli airstrikes in the Damascus area earlier this evening. pic.twitter.com/XbVAcfpKOE
— Joe Truzman (@JoeTruzman) December 2, 2023
DEATH TOLL RISES SINCE TRUCE BROKEN
The Hamas government in the Gaza Strip said Saturday that 240 people had been killed in the Palestinian territory since a pause in the fighting expired on Friday.Another 650 people had been injured in “hundreds of air strikes, artillery and navy bombardments, everywhere in the Gaza Strip”, it said in a statement, adding that Israeli forces had “particularly targeted Khan Yunis, where dozens of houses were destroyed with their inhabitants inside”.
BLAME GAME AS FIGHTING CONTINUES
Both sides blamed each other for breaking the truce, with Israel claiming that Hamas had tried to fire a rocket before it ended and failed to produce a list of further hostages for release.
“What we’re doing now is striking Hamas military targets all over the Gaza Strip,” IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus said.
International leaders and humanitarian groups condemned the return to fighting.
“I deeply regret that military operations have started again in Gaza,” UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said on X, formerly Twitter.
Outside the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, a man in a blue sweater bellowed in grief and turned his face and hands to the sky after viewing a dead boy in a body bag, AFPTV footage showed.
“What did he do wrong? God, what did we do to deserve this?” he yelled.
PALESTINIAN PROTESTER SETS SELF ON FIRE
A Palestinian protester in Atlanta in the US went to extreme lengths to spread her message. Police say the woman walked in front of the building housing the Israeli Consulate draped herself on a Palestinian flag, poured gasoline on herself, and then lit herself on fire.
136 HOSTAGES MISSING: WHO THEY ARE
The Israeli army said five of the hostages seized by Hamas had died, and that the Islamist group was still holding “136 hostages, including 17 women and children”.
Seven days of hostage-prisoner exchanges had yielded tearful reunions of Israeli families with their released relatives and jubilation in the streets of the occupied West Bank as Palestinian prisoners walked free from Israeli jails.
ISRAEL HUNTS 3 HAMAS KINGPINS
Nowhere in the world will be safe for Hamas’ leadership, with Israel planning to kill the terror group’s kingpins across the globe when the conflict in the Middle East winds down, including the man dubbed “the bin Laden of Gaza”.
Working on orders from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country’s top intelligence agencies are putting together plans to continue to hunt down Hamas’ leaders living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and abroad in countries including Lebanon, Turkey and Iran.
Israel’s spy agencies have a long history of hunting down and assassinating terror leaders who have committed acts against the Jewish state.
At the top of Israel’s list will be the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who helped coordinate the October 7 attacks.
Sinwar, who borrows his moniker from the mastermind of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the US, Osama bin Laden, has spent 22 years in prison in Israel for terrorist murder and kidnap plots.
He is the founder of Hamas’ military wing and its intelligence service and has been the leader of the terror group in Gaza since 2017.
Israel has vowed to find and kill Sinwar and has said its renewed offensive will not end until he is dead.
He is believed to be hiding in a Hamas command centre underneath a hospital in the Gaza Strip. However there are suspicions he could or will flee to Egypt.
ACTING LIKE A ‘LITTLE HITLER’
Speaking about Sinwar on Saturday, Netanyahu said he was acting like a “little Hitler in a bunker” and said “he has no care for his people”.
Israel Defence Forces spokesman Lt Colonel Richard Hecht compared Sinwar to al-Qaeda leader Bin Laden for his role in the Hamas atrocities.
“Yahya Sinwar is the face of evil. He is the mastermind behind this, like Bin Laden was [with the 9/11 US attacks],” Lt Colonel Hecht said.
The Israelis have urged Palestinians to kill or hand over the Sinwar themselves as this would “hasten the end to the war”.
Two other Hamas leaders high on Israel’s hit list are Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’ military wing, the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades and another key planner of the October 7 attacks and his second in command, Marwan Issa.
Hamas opened its political bureau in Doha, Qatar, a decade ago and other Hamas leaders are believed to be living there.
RALLIES CONTINUE
Muslims continue to take part in a pro-Palestinian rallies worldwide.
One was held at the National Monument park in Jakarta on December 2.
Thousands of civilians, both Palestinians and Israelis, have died since October 7 after Palestinian Hamas militants based in the Gaza Strip entered southern Israel in an unprecedented attack triggering a war declared by Israel on Hamas with retaliatory bombings on Gaza.
During the seven-day truce, Hamas freed 80 Israeli hostages in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners, and more aid entered Gaza.
Twenty-five other hostages, mostly Thais, were also freed in separate arrangements.
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