Binyamin Netanyahu has accused South Africa of “representing monsters” and “accusing Israel of genocide while it is fighting genocide”, saying its case at the International Court of Justice at The Hague on Thursday is evidence of a “world turned upside down”.
Israel’s prime minister added that South Africa’s hypocrisy “cries out from the heavens”, and said his country would “continue to reject the lies and will fight terrorists until total victory”.
Nissim Vaturi, a member of the Knesset – Israel’s parliament – from Mr Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, repeated his statement from last month that “Gaza should be burned” and “there aren’t any innocent civilians” in the northern Gaza Strip after Israel acted to move most Palestinians living there to the south.
As fierce fighting continued in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said the Palestinian death toll from the war on Gaza launched by Israel on October 7th now exceeded 23,400, 70 per cent of them women and minors.
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The ministry also said hospitals in Gaza were now full to 340 per cent capacity and gynaecology departments had been repurposed as medical and surgical wards, with many patients sleeping on the floor. It said it needed to move 6,200 wounded patients out of the coastal enclave, and there were 10,000 cancer patients in danger of dying due to insufficient treatment.
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Israel’s war cabinet met to discuss a new proposal drawn up by Qatar for a deal to release the 136 hostages Israel believes are still in captivity in Gaza. The proposal reportedly calls for the staged release of the hostages in return for Israel ending the war and agreeing that Hamas leaders in Gaza can go into exile.
A senior Israeli official was quoted as saying that any demand to stop the fighting would be met with the opposition of a majority of the security cabinet and cabinet members. Hamas has also rejected in the past any suggestion that its leaders in Gaza would go into exile.
Families of hostages on Thursday gathered on the border with Gaza with loudspeakers to call on captives held by Hamas to hold on. “We will not stop until you are back home,” they said. “All of Israel is with you.”
Israel is expected to approve in the next few days the entry of 400 lorries carrying humanitarian aid into Gaza every day, up from some 200 that enter daily at present. And a promise was made to US secretary of state Antony Blinken, in meetings in Israel earlier this week, that this number would increase further.
Israel working with the region and creating a path to a Palestinian state is the best way to isolate Iran, Mr Blinken said on Thursday, before leaving the region at the end of his latest trip there.
White House special envoy Amos Hochstein said on Thursday during a meeting with Lebanese prime minister Najib Mikati that there was a “necessity to act to calm the situation in southern Lebanon, even if a sustainable solution is unattainable at this stage”. Israel has warned that the window for a diplomatic solution is rapidly closing and it will use force if necessary to stop rocket and drone attacks by the Iran-backed militant group Hizbullah that have forced more than 70,000 Israelis to flee the border area.
Israel’s top general, Lieut Gen Herzi Halevi, told officers in Gaza that the Israeli military was capable of operating in Lebanon as it was now operating in Gaza. “There is no square kilometre in Gaza that we cannot enter and dismantle. After what you did, there is no village in Lebanon that you cannot enter and dismantle. You will do what needs to be done.”
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