Benjamin Netanyahu promised the Israelis on Sunday, April 21, to increase “military pressure” on Hamas “in the coming days,” without mentioning the army’s intervention in Rafah, an overpopulated town in the south of the Gaza Strip, which he has repeatedly said he is determined to order.
“We will deal him new hard blows – and it will happen soon. In the coming days, we will increase military and political pressure on Hamas, because this is the only way to free our hostages and achieve our victory,” the Israeli prime minister said in a speech broadcast on the eve of Passover Jewish.
The G7 member states expressed their opposition on Friday to “a large-scale military operation in Rafah”, where more than a million and a half Gazans are crowded together, including many displaced people. They further denounced the “unacceptable number of civilians” killed in the Gaza Strip.
The Civil Protection of the Gaza Strip announced on Sunday the discovery of 50 bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in a hospital in Khan Younes, still in the south of the enclave. “We noted the presence in the Nasser Medical Complex of mass graves dug by the Israeli occupier. We began excavations and were shocked to discover 50 martyrs in one of the graves yesterday,” Mahmoud Bassal, spokesperson for the organization, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
“The searches continue today and there are other bodies, but we are waiting for the end” of the operations “to clearly establish the number of bodies found,” he continued. Some of the bodies “were stripped of their clothes, which certainly indicates that they were arrested, tortured and subjected to ill-treatment by the occupying army,” he added.
Hamas, which denounced a “horrible crime,” claims that the victims were “executed in cold blood and buried by military bulldozers in the courtyard” of the Nasser Medical Complex. Questioned by AFP, the Israeli army indicated that checks were underway. Israeli military operations carried out over the past six months in the Gaza Strip have left 34,097 dead, mainly women and children, according to the Ministry of Health in the territory administered by Hamas.
Engaged in a standoff with Iran and in full offensive against the Islamist movement, ally of Tehran, Israel received new support on Saturday from the United States, whose House of Representatives approved military aid of 13 billion dollars . For Hamas, Washington thus gave Israel the “green light” to continue “aggressing” the Palestinians.
According to Gaza civil defense, Israeli army fire left at least 16 people dead on Sunday. The Ministry of Health reports forty-eight deaths in twenty-four hours.
Benjamin Netanyahu also reacted strongly to information according to which Washington could impose sanctions on an Israeli army unit suspected of abuses committed against Palestinians in the West Bank, before the attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas in the south of the Jewish state, which provoked the offensive in the Gaza Strip.
“The Israeli army must not be sanctioned! At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose sanctions on a unit of the Israeli army is the height of absurdity and an attack on morality,” he wrote on Saturday on X.
The day before, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, was questioned about information according to which the United States was going to suspend military aid allocated to certain units of the Israeli army suspected of human rights violations. “I’ve come to some conclusions. You can expect to hear about them in the coming days,” Blinken said. According to American and Israeli media, the unit in question is the “Netzah Yehuda” battalion, made up largely of ultra-Orthodox soldiers.
While negotiations for a truce are stalling, Israeli public opinion is forcefully demanding from its leaders an agreement that would allow the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip since October 7. Demonstrators once again demanded the resignation of Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday evening in Tel Aviv.
“We need Bibi to go because he is a disaster for Israel, economically and above all for the security of the population,” said one. The families of the hostages called on Israelis to leave an empty chair at the ritual Seder meal Monday evening, which marks the start of the Jewish holiday of Passover, so as not to forget them.
In the West Bank, two young Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers on Sunday, according to the Palestinian health ministry. According to the army, they attempted to stab and open fire on soldiers near the village of Beit Einoun, in the south of the territory. On Saturday, an Israeli raid in the Nour-Shams camp, near Tulkarem, left 14 dead, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
