New bombings targeted the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a new intensification of fighting against Hamas, despite international calls to silence the weapons and heavy civilian losses in the besieged Palestinian territory.
In the occupied West Bank, while a Palestinian MP has just been arrested by the Israeli army, two Palestinians were killed in the Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron. For its part, the United States announced that it had struck three sites used by Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed forces in Iraq amid tensions linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Information to remember
⇒ Palestinian MP arrested by Israeli army
⇒ New bombings in southern Gaza
⇒ American strikes against pro-Iranian sites in Iraq
Israeli army arrests Palestinian lawmaker
Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar, one of the figures of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was arrested Tuesday by the Israeli army in Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, her husband said. Khalida Jarrar, 60, was arrested by Israeli army soldiers who burst into the family home in Ramallah “by breaking down the door at five in the morning”, Ghassan Jarrar told AFP.
A member of the Palestinian Parliament suspended since 2007, Jarrar was released in September 2021 after serving a two-year sentence in an Israeli prison. She was arrested in October 2019 following the death of a 17-year-old Israeli girl, killed in an attack in the occupied West Bank attributed by the Israeli army to the PFLP, a Marxist movement considered “terrorist” by Israel. the United States and the European Union.
Two Palestinians killed by Israeli army in West Bank
Two Palestinians were killed Tuesday by Israeli army fire during an incursion into the Fawwar refugee camp south of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. They are aged 17 and 31 respectively, according to the Palestinian ministry. No comment could immediately be obtained from the Israeli army.
More than 300 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been killed by soldiers, and in some cases by Israeli settlers, since the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip began on October 7, according to a Palestinian government tally.
New bombings in southern Gaza
While Israel announced a new intensification of fighting against Hamas, new bombings took place above Khan Younes, in the south of Gaza, this Tuesday, December 26. This large city is home to many displaced people who have fled the north. According to an AFP correspondent, Israeli strikes continued during the night also in the neighboring town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where tens of thousands of displaced people are crowded into makeshift camps.
The army announced Tuesday that it had struck more than a hundred Hamas targets over the past day, including tunnel entrances and military sites used to attack soldiers, notably in Jabaliya, in the north, and Khan Younes.
US strikes against pro-Iranian sites in Iraq
At least one member of a pro-Iran Iraqi faction was killed and 24 others injured in these American strikes against three sites in Iraq used by pro-Iranian groups, Iraqi security sources told AFP. Baghdad denouncing a “hostile act”, in a context of regional tensions exacerbated by the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas in Gaza.
Questioned by AFP, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said that one of these strikes had targeted a Hachd al-Chaabi site, in Hilla, capital of Babylon province, south of Baghdad.
Netanyahu in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that he had visited Gaza on Monday December 25 and promised “an intensification” of the fighting against Hamas.
“I am now returning from Gaza. We are not stopping, we are continuing to fight and we are intensifying the fighting in the days to come and it will be a long war that is not going to end any time soon,” he said. in front of his Likud party.
Ex-hostage’s car found inside hospital
The Israeli army claimed Monday to have found in the grounds of a hospital in Gaza the family car of a former hostage kidnapped on October 7 in Gaza and killed “by mistake” in December by Israeli soldiers.
The car, as well as another vehicle that may have been used by Hamas commandos during their attack on Israeli soil, were found, according to an Israeli army statement, on the grounds of the Indonesian hospital. in Beit Lahia, in the north of the Gaza Strip, out of service after being stormed by Israeli soldiers on November 24.
“In the hospital grounds, we found a white Toyota truck of the same type used by Hamas terrorists during the October 7 massacre, as well as additional weapons,” the army said. “In addition, in the same compound and in a demarcated area, a Toyota Corolla car with an Israeli license plate was found, belonging to the family of the deceased Samer Talalka,” she added.
According to her, “RPG fragments and traces of blood, identified as belonging to another hostage, were found in the vehicle.” “The discovery of the vehicle directly links the hospital to the brutal events of October 7,” the army said. This information could not be independently verified.