GAZA STRIP: Israel said it had “dismantled” Hamas’s military leadership in northern Gaza as its aggression against the Palestinian group entered a fourth month on Sunday, with fears mounting that the unrest could spread into neighbouring Leba­non.

Israel’s army said it had “completed the dismantling of the Hamas military framework in the northern Gaza Strip” and its forces would now focus on central and southern areas of the territory.

The prospect of a wider regional war loomed with army spokesman Daniel Hagari warning that Hezbollah was “dragging Lebanon into an unnecessary war”. The group fired more than 60 rockets at an Israeli military base on Saturday in response to this week’s killing in Beirut of Hamas’s deputy leader.Netanyahu was under growing pressure on Saturday with demonstrators gathering in Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to call for early elections and the resignation of his government.

“Bibi Netanyahu and all the rest of his idiots are ruining Israel and they are destroying everything we hoped and dreamed of,” Shachaf Netzer, 54, said. “Everybody here wants an election.”

‘Uninhabitable’

Civilians in Gaza Strip have borne the brunt of the unrest as the scale of the destruction has triggered mass displacement and a deepening humanitarian crisis.

With swathes of the territory reduced to rubble, UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths said “Gaza has simply become uninhabitable”.

The World Health Organisation says most of Gaza’s 36 hospitals have been put out of action by the fighting, while remaining medical facilities face dire shortages.

International aid group Doctors Without Borders said it had evacuated its staff from Al Aqsa hospital in central Gaza after a bullet penetrated a wall in the intensive care unit.

“The situation became so dangerous that some staff living in the neighbouring areas were not able to leave their houses because of the constant threats of drones and snipers,” said Carolina Lopez, the group’s emergency coordinator at the hospital.

Published in Dawn, January 8th, 2024