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AS IT HAPPENED
Israel’s Netanyahu vows to continue war with Hamas ‘until all aims achieved’
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Saturday the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip would continue “until we achieve all its aims”, moments after announcing Israel was pulling its negotiators out of Qatar after a deadlock in talks there to secure a renewed pause in the Israel-Hamas war, as Israeli forces carried out deadly bombardments in southern Gaza for a second day after the expiration of a week-long ceasefire. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, more than 15,200 people have died in Gaza since the war began. Follow our live blog for the latest developments. Read our live blog to see how all the day’s events unfolded.
Issued on: 02/12/2023 – 07:28
Modified: 02/12/2023 – 23:07
2 min
In this handout picture taken and released by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on November 26, 2023 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) meets soldiers at an undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip.
In this handout picture taken and released by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office on November 26, 2023 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) meets soldiers at an undisclosed location in the Gaza Strip. © Israeli Prime Minister Office, via AFP
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FRANCE 24
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Summary
Israel resumed its deadly offensive against Hamas in Gaza on Friday, accusing the militant group of violating the seven-day truce just before its expiration.
Since the ceasefire ended, at least 193 Palestinians have been killed, many of them women and children, and hundreds have been wounded, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said.
Deputy Hamas chief Saleh Al-Arouri told the pan-Arab Al Jazeera TV on Saturday there would be no more prisoner exchanges until there was a ceasefire in Gaza, adding the hostages still held by Hamas were Israeli soldiers and civilian men who had previously served in the Israeli army. He said they would not be freed unless there was a ceasefire and all Palestinian detainees were also released
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said Saturday 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.
Israel said it has struck more than 400 Hamas targets.
137 hostages are still being held in Gaza, Israel said, after 110 were released during the ceasefire when they were swapped for 240 Palestinians who were imprisoned by Israel.
Prime Minister Binyamin netanyahu’s office said Saturday Israel was pulling its Mossad negotiators out of Qatar, which is mediating efforts to secure a renewed pause in the Israel-Hamas war, “following the impasse in the negotiations”.
Palestinian human rights groups refused to meet the International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan on Saturday, accusing him of favouring Israeli accusations of rights abuses over longstanding Palestinian charges.
The White House said it believes Israel will allow humanitarian aid trucks to enter Gaza again, but that the number of deliveries will likely be reduced to dozens per day.
Hamas attacked southern Israeli communities on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking about 240 hostages, according to the Israeli government. Since then, more than 15,200 people, including about 6,000 children, have been killed in Israel’s ensuing assault on the Gaza Strip, the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry said.
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Last Update: 6 hours ago
6 hours ago
This is the end of our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war for tonight. For more of our coverage of the conflict, please go to france24.com/en
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6 hours ago
Released Israeli hostages call to bring remaining captives back at Tel Aviv hostage rally
Israeli hostages released from Gaza spoke publicly Saturday for the first time and urged their government to secure the release of the remaining captives held in the war-torn Palestinian territory. Most 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.
Present at the rally, Yelena Trupanov, who was released Wednesday, told the crowd assembled outside the Tel Aviv Art Museum that “we must return my Sasha and the rest,” referring to her son, still held in Gaza. Trupanov, 50, had appeared in a hostage video disseminated by Hamas in the weeks after the attacks.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said Saturday that 137 Israelis and foreign nationals remained captive in the Gaza Strip.
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6 hours ago
Israeli ground invasion in Southern Gaza ‘increasingly likely’, Rob Geist Pinfold analyses
According to Rob Geist Pinfold, lecturer at Durham University’s School of Governance and International Affairs, an Israeli ground invasion in Southern Gaza is becoming ‘increasingly likely’, as the country insists in ‘destroying’ Hamas. But Israel’s tactics are delicate and could leave a ‘power vacuum’ in the Palestinian territory.
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7 hours ago
Civilians are ‘centre of gravity’ in Gaza war, Israel must shield them to win to avoid radicalization, US Defence Secretary says
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin delivered his strongest remarks to date over Israel’s need to protect civilians in Gaza on Saturday, calling them “the centre of gravity” in Israel’s war with Hamas and warning over the risks of their radicalization.
“In this kind of a fight, the centre of gravity is the civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” Austin said, drawing on his experience as a four-star general overseeing the battle against Islamic State militants.
“So I have repeatedly made clear to Israel’s leaders that protecting Palestinian civilians in Gaza is both a moral responsibility and strategic imperative.”
Austin told the Reagan National Defence 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. “In this kind of a fight, the centre of gravity is the civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”
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7 hours ago
Hamas armed wing says Tel Aviv hit with barrage of missiles
The armed wing of the Hamas militant group, the Al Qassem Brigades, issued a statement on Saturday saying it had bombarded Tel Aviv with a barrage of missiles in response to Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.
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8 hours ago
Families of Bedouin Arabs taken hostage wait for news as Gaza fighting resumes
The family members of four Bedouin Arabs taken hostage on Oct. 7 during the assault on southern Israel by Hamas gunmen have welcomed the return of two of the captives but wait for news of the others as fighting resumes in the Gaza Strip.
Bedouin Arabs make up about 4% of Israel’s population, living mainly in the southern Negev desert and in northern Israel.
Yosef Hamis Ziadna, his sons Hamza and Bilal and his daughter, Aisha, were working on the Holit farm on Israel’s border with Gaza when they were seized by the gunmen along with more than 200 other Israelis and foreigners.
Aisha and Bilal were handed over during the seven-day truce between Israel and Hamas that ended on Friday morning but Yosef and Hamza are still being held, along with two other Bedouins, Farhan al-Qadi and Samer al-Talalqa.
Their cousin Kamel al-Ziadna said the families were urging Hamas to release their hostages. “They are Arab, Muslim youth,” he said.
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8 hours ago
Netanyahu says war against Hamas to continue ‘until we achieve all its aims’
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday 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.”
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9 hours ago
Israeli strike destroys prestige Qatar-funded Gaza complex hours after Israeli negotiators pulled out of truce talks in Qatar
At almost exactly the same time Israeli negotiators pulled out of deadlocked truce talks in Qatar on Saturday, Israeli jets sent a prestige Doha-funded housing development in the Gaza Strip up in smoke.
Hamad City is named for the former emir of the Gulf petro-state, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who laid the foundation stone on a visit 11 years ago. Inaugurated in 2016, it was still among the newest projects in the Gaza Strip, the housing complex in the city of Khan Yunis boasting an impressive mosque, shops and gardens. The first flats — more than 1,000 of them — were provided to Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in the war between Israel and Hamas two years earlier.
On Saturday it happened again, a day after a Qatar-brokered pause in the current war between Israel and Hamas expired.
First their phones pinged around noon with an “immediate” evacuation order SMS sent by the Israeli army, which says the system is aimed at minimising civilian casualties. Around an hour later, five Israeli air strikes rained down on the neighbourhood in the space of just two minutes.
Bombs slammed into the pale apartment blocks one by one, reducing them largely to rubble and sending a huge pall of black smoke into the sky, as people fled and cries of ‘help!’ and ‘ambulance!’ rang out.
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10 hours ago
No prisoner exchange with Israel until war on Gaza is over, Hamas says
Deputy Hamas chief Saleh Al-Arouri told the pan-Arab Al Jazeera TV on Saturday that there will be no more prisoners exchanged with Israel until war on Gaza is over.
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11 hours ago
US Vice President Harris urges Israel to do more to protect Palestinian civilians
US Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday reiterated Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, but said international and humanitarian law must be respected, noting that too many Palestinians have been killed.
“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating,” Harris told reporters. “So we all want this conflict to end as soon as possible, and to ensure Israel’s security and ensure security for the Palestinian people. We must accelerate efforts to build an enduring peace.”
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11 hours ago
‘Simply no safe space in Gaza today’ amid Israeli war effort, says expert
Scott Lucas, a professor of international politics at University College Dublin, tells FRANCE 24 that “in the Israeli effort to destroy Hamas, there is simply no safe space in Gaza today”.
“Even the Israeli PR that they can protect civilians or limit civilian casualties … is in question now,” says Lucas.
“We now have evidence from former and current Israeli officials who did speak to Israeli publications … that the Israelis have been been pursuing a strategy which is simply ‘hit the Hamas targets, and if civilians die in the process, so be it’.”
Click on the player to watch the full interview.
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11 hours ago
Palestinian rights groups snub ICC prosecutor during visit to Israel and occupied territories
Palestinian human rights groups refused to meet the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan on Saturday, accusing him of favouring Israeli accusations of rights abuses over longstanding Palestinian charges.
Khan has been visiting Israel and the occupied West Bank following a request by a group representing families of victims of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, but he was also due to meet Palestinian officials in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
However, Palestinian activists said they would refuse to see him because of their objections to what they saw as unequal treatment of Israeli and Palestinian cases. Accusations of war crimes and human rights abuses have been made on both sides amid the Israel-Hamas war that has followed the October 7 attack.
“As Palestinian human rights organisations, we decided not to meet him,” said Ammar Al-Dwaik, director general of the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR). “I think the way this visit has been handled shows that Mr Khan is not handling his work in an independent and professional manner,” he said.
On Saturday, Khan also met Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah. The official Palestinian news agency WAFA said Abbas had urged Khan to investigate Israeli operations in Gaza as well as the occupied West Bank.
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12 hours ago
Israel ‘not informing Gaza civilians where they can flee’ for safety amid air strikes
FRANCE 24’s Luke Shrago reports that Gaza civilians have been in ‘general panic’ after Israel published new maps with areas that its forces will target with air strikes, especially since Israel is “not informing Gaza civilians where they can flee” for safety.
The areas to be considered safe have “increasingly diminished”, Shrago reports from Tel Aviv.
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13 hours ago
Israel will help provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, says senior Netanyahu adviser
Israel will facilitate the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilians, said a senior adviser to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Saturday, on the day after fighting resumed in the Israel-Hamas war following a week-long ceasefire.
Addressing reporters’ questions about whether Israel seeks a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of the Gaza Strip after the war is over, Mark Regev said Israel will not allow a situation in which Hamas militants are positioned on the border.
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13 hours ago
Macron has ‘perception problem’ in the Arab World due to varied positions on Israel-Hamas war
French President Emmanuel Macron has a ‘perception problem’ in the Arab World due to his varied positions on the Israel-Hamas war, as well as his effort to recalibrate them, explains FRANCE 24 international affairs commentator Douglas Herbert.
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13 hours ago
Israel pulls negotiators back from Qatar after ‘impasse’ in talks to renew ceasefire
Israel said Saturday it was pulling its Mossad negotiators out of Qatar, which is mediating efforts to secure a renewed pause in the Israel-Hamas war, after a deadlock in the talks.
“Following the impasse in the negotiations and at the direction of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, David Barnea, head of the Mossad, ordered his team in Doha to return to Israel,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.
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14 hours ago
Macron urges Israeli authorities to better ‘define their objectives’ in war with Hamas
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday urged Israel to clarify its goals in its war with the Palestinian group Hamas.
“We are at a moment when Israeli authorities must more precisely define their objectives and their final goal: the complete destruction of Hamas, does anyone think it is possible? If this is the case, the war will last for 10 years,” said Macron, who was speaking at a press conference at the COP 28 summit in Dubai.
“There is no lasting security for Israel in the region if its security is achieved at the cost of Palestinian lives and thus of the resentment of public opinions in the region,” he said.
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14 hours ago
Macron says he will go to Qatar to ‘help engage a new truce’ in Israel-Hamas war
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Saturday that France was “very concerned” by the resumption of violence in Gaza and that he was heading to Qatar to help “engage a new truce ahead of a ceasefire” in the Israel-Hamas war.
Macron also told a press conference at the COP28 UN climate summit in Dubai that the situation required the doubling down on efforts to obtain a “lasting ceasefire” and the freeing of all hostages.
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14 hours ago
Macron says if Israel’s objective is ‘complete destruction of Hamas’, Israel-Hamas war ‘will last for 10 years’
French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday said that if “the complete destruction of Hamas” is the objective of Israel’s war with the Palestinian militant group, “the war will last for 10 years”.
Macron was speaking at a press conference at the COP28 summit in Dubai.
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15 hours ago
Israeli strikes kill four pro-Iran fighters in new Syria toll, monitor says
Israeli air strikes killed two Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) officers and two pro-Hezbollah fighters when they hit sites belonging to the Lebanese group near Damascus Saturday, a war monitor said.
“Two Syrian fighters working with Hezbollah and two IRGC officers were killed in Israeli air strikes on Hezbollah sites near Sayyida Zeinab” south of Damascus, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The two foreigners died from their injuries, said the head of the UK-based monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria. He said five other fighters were wounded. Rahman had earlier said that the two Syrian fighters had been killed.
The strikes near the Syrian capital came less than 24 hours after the end of a seven-day pause in fighting between Israel and Hezbollah ally Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
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Key developments on Friday, December 1:
The UN decried the resumption of fighting in Gaza, saying “those in power have decided that the killing of children would recommence”.
Five Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been killed, the Israeli army confirmed.
Three people were killed by Israeli shelling in southern Lebanon, its state news agency reported. The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, later said one of its fighters was among those killed.
Hamas said three journalists were killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza, bringing the total death toll of journalists in the Israel-Hamas war to 73.
For more, read yesterday’s blog here.
About casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry:
Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the enclave, receives data from every hospital in the strip. Hospital administrators say they keep records of every wounded person occupying a bed and every body arriving at a morgue. The ministry also collects from other sources including the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The health ministry does not report how Palestinians were killed, whether from Israeli airstrikes and artillery barrages or errant Palestinian rocket fire. It describes all casualties as victims of “Israeli aggression”. The ministry also does not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Throughout four wars and numerous skirmishes between Israel and Hamas, UN agencies have cited the Hamas-run health ministry’s death tolls in regular reports. The International Committee of the Red Cross and Palestinian Red Crescent also use the numbers.
In the aftermath of war, the UN humanitarian office has published final death tolls based on its own research into medical records. The UN’s counts have largely been consistent with the Gaza health ministry’s, with small discrepancies.
For more on the Gaza health ministry’s tolls, click here.
(FRANCE 24 with AP)
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP and Reuters)
