On day 100 of the war on Gaza, Israel\u2019s relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip continues with no sign of easing, amid a growing humanitarian catastrophe and the looming threat of a regional spillover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At least 23,968 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, have been killed since the war began on October 7, after Hamas fighters carried out an assault on southern Israel that killed 1,139 there. Israel said about 240 people were also taken captive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has promised to \u201ccontinue [the war] until victory\u201d, saying in a televised address late on Saturday that \u201cit is possible and necessary\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo one will stop us \u2013 not The Hague, not the Axis of Evil and no one else,\u201d Netanyahu said, in reference to a case that South Africa brought to the International Court of Justice seeking emergency measures to halt Israel\u2019s war, and in reference to the Iran-aligned \u201caxis of resistance\u201d groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The war has been by far the bloodiest and most destructive episode of fighting in the decades-long conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2018Staining our shared humanity\u2019<\/strong> The United Nations estimates that 1.9 million people, nearly 85 percent of the population, have been internally displaced, while more than 90 percent face acute food insecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe massive destruction, displacement, hunger and loss of last 100 days are staining our shared humanity,\u201d the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe humanitarian operation has become one of the most complex & challenging in the world,\u201d it added in a post on the social media platform X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Palestine\u2019s foreign ministry said that in 100 days, \u201cthe Israeli occupation has turned Gaza into an uninhabitable place, committed horrific crimes\u201d. It added that \u201cthe international community was \u201cagain failing\u201d to implement international resolutions related to the Palestinian cause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel\u2019s goals<\/strong> Last week, the Israeli army said it was scaling down its operation in northern Gaza after having dismantled Hamas\u2019s \u201cmilitary framework\u201d there. It has also signalled it was shifting to a lower-intensity phase of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet questions remain on how the military will conduct more targeted operations in the south after Israel forced more than a million people to evacuate there from the north.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Regarding the stated goal of bringing all captives back home, little progress has been made since a fragile truce in early December allowed the return of about 105 people. The issue is a thorny one within Israel, with relatives of those held inside Gaza pressuring the war cabinet to do more for their release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tens of thousands of people in Tel Aviv marked \u201c100 days of hell\u201d at rallies in Hostage Square on Saturday and Sunday. Families and supporters of the captives gathered to demand the release of the hostages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe families are absolutely desperate,\u201d said Al Jazeera\u2019s Sara Khairat, reporting from Tel Aviv. \u201cThey went from uniting here at the rallies every single Saturday, where tens of thousands of people have been showing up. Now the kind of rhetoric they\u2019re using is \u2018enough is enough\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday, a spokesman for Hamas\u2019s armed wing meanwhile said the fate of many Israeli hostages has become unknown. In a televised address, Abu Ubaida said many of the hostages \u201cmay have been killed\u201d, blaming their fate on Israel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Risk of spillovers<\/strong> Tensions are also high with regional neighbours. The Lebanese group Hezbollah and the Israeli army have been engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire along Israel\u2019s northern frontier with Lebanon. The killing of a Hamas senior leader in an alleged Israeli strike on Beirut also raised concerns about a wider conflict.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, from Yemen, Houthi rebels have started targeting international ships linked to Israel on the Red Sea \u2013 one of the most important routes for global commerce \u2013 promising not to stop until the war does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In response to Houthi aggression, the United States and the United Kingdom have launched major strikes on Yemen\u2019s soil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, as the war drags on, there is little clarity on Israel\u2019s vision for post-war Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The US has repeatedly insisted that it wants the Palestinian Authority to reform and then govern the Strip. But the body that rules parts of the occupied West Bank enjoys little support among Palestinians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n SOURCE: AL JAZEERA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On day 100 of the war on Gaza, Israel\u2019s relentless bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip continues with no sign of easing, amid a growing humanitarian catastrophe and the looming threat of a regional spillover. At least 23,968 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, have been killed since the war began on October 7, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":7798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[307,185,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main-news","category-palestinian-affairs","category-172"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7800,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7797\/revisions\/7800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
In early January, Gaza\u2019s media office said Israel had dropped more than 65,000 tonnes of bombs on the territory. Analysis of satellite data cited by the Associated Press shows that about 33 percent of buildings in the whole Strip have been destroyed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Israeli authorities have set two main goals to claim victory: the destruction of Hamas and its capacity to rule Gaza, and the return of all captives, about 136 of whom still remain in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Israel bombards Gaza, it has also upped its raids and arrests on the occupied West Bank.<\/p>\n\n\n\n