AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): At least 112 people have been killed and 173 others injured in the past 24 hours, raising the death toll to 28,176, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The ministry in a statement on Sunday said at least 67,784 others have been wounded since Israel launched its brutal military offensive on October 7.
Thousands more are missing and are presumed dead, trapped and missing under the rubble and on the roads, with Israeli forces preventing ambulance and civil defense crews from reaching them.
More than 70 percent of the houses have been damaged in Gaza, home to 2.3 million people.
Israel has pounded the Gaza Strip since a cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Oct. 7. Israel had announced its goal from the beginning of the operation to destroy Hamas and then release the Israeli captives in Gaza, but after more than four months, not only this goal has not been achieved, but Israel's insistence on these two goals has caused differences in that society.
Experts believe that Israel is now in a dilemma and must choose between destroying Hamas or freeing the captives. Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister of the Zionist regime, is under very strong domestic pressure from members of the right-wing part of the government. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s national security minister, and Bezalel Smotrich, the finance minister, have been threatening to leave the government if Netanyahu enters a deal they say is unfavorable to Israel, including the release of thousands of Palestinian detainees from Israeli jails.
He also has pressure from the opposition Benny Gantz, who joined Netanyahu’s emergency government. He and his party are not part of the wider coalition and Gantz is saying that if Netanyahu continues to cave to the right, he’s going to leave the emergency government.
Then he has another member of the opposition, Yair Lapid, who has said that if the right-wing leaves the government, his party is ready to step in to offer Netanyahu a safety net if it means agreeing to a deal that would bring back captives from Gaza.
While Netanyahu is preparing to launch a massive offensive to Rafah, pressure also continues to mount on Netanyahu from the Americans as well as from the families of the captives and also those people who have been displaced on the northern side of its border, experts believe that the destruction of Hamas is a far-fetched goal.
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