Israel army chief says Gaza war to last 'many more months'

TEL AVIV, Israel

Israel’s Army Chief, Herzi Halevi, has said the war in Gaza will last “many more months” as the military stepped up strikes inside the Gaza Strip, where more than 20,000 people have already been reported killed.

Concerns over a spiralling humanitarian crisis inside the besieged territory have amplified calls for an end to the hostilities, while incidents linked to Iran-backed groups acting in solidarity with Palestine have fanned fears of a wider regional conflict.

Yesterday, the United States reported shooting down a barrage of drones and missiles over the Red Sea fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

But Israel’s leaders have repeatedly vowed to keep up their offensive until Hamas is destroyed, and army chief signalled there would be no quick end to the war.

“This war’s objectives are essential and not simple to achieve,” Halevi said last night.

“Therefore, the war will continue for many more months.”

The conflict erupted when Hamas gunmen attacked Israel on 7 October and killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

During the attack – the deadliest in Israel’s history – Hamas also took around 250 hostages, of whom 129 remain inside Gaza, Israel says.

Israel retaliated with a relentless bombardment and a siege followed by a ground invasion. The campaign has killed at least 20,915 people, mostly women and children, according to the latest toll issued by Gaza’s health ministry.

Since the siege went into effect, Gaza’s 2.4 million people have been suffering severe shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine, with only limited aid entering the territory. An estimated 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN.

In the southern city of Rafah, where many displaced people have sought refuge, hundreds turned up at the Abdul Salam Yassin water company yesterday carrying baskets, pulling handcarts and even pushing a wheelchair stacked with bottles to queue for clean water.

“This was my father’s cart,” said Rafah resident Amir al-Zahhar. “He was martyred during the war. He used it to transport and sell fish, and now we are using it to transport fresh water.”

Elsewhere in the city, people split logs and stacked kindling as the lack of fuel forced them to burn wood for cooking and to keep warm.

One woman took advantage of the sunshine yesterday to wash her family’s clothes by hand, telling AFP: “I’ve pleaded with people for water. I have absolutely nothing. I’ve borrowed everything, even the blankets, from others.”

The UN Security Council, in a resolution last week, called for the “safe and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance at scale”.

It requested the appointment of a UN humanitarian coordinator to oversee and verify third-country aid to Gaza, and yesterday Sigrid Kaag, the outgoing Dutch finance minister, was named to the post.

The resolution, which did not call for an immediate end to the fighting, effectively leaves Israel with operational oversight of aid deliveries.

Israel returned the bodies of 80 Palestinians killed in Gaza after taking them from morgues and graves to check there were no hostages among them, sources in the territory’s health ministry said.

The bodies, which had been transported to Israel, were returned through the Red Cross to Hamas authorities who buried them in a mass grave in Gaza, the sources said.

An AFP photographer saw a digger lowering the blue body bags into a trench in Rafah, in the far south of the territory.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said yesterday that troops were “fighting in the southern Gaza Strip in the area of Khan Yunis, and we have expanded the combat to the area known as the central camps”.

Three more Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza yesterday, bringing the total to 161 since its ground invasion began on 27 October, the military said.

The UN Human Rights Office said it was “gravely concerned about the continued bombardment of Middle Gaza by Israeli forces”, particularly after the military ordered residents to move to the central and southern regions.

France, a staunch Israeli ally, also said it was concerned by Israel’s vow to intensify and prolong the fighting.

Violence has also flared across the occupied West Bank since the war began.

An Israeli operation in a refugee camp in the north of the West Bank left six people dead early this morning, according to the Palestinian ministry of health.

More than 300 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces and settlers since the war erupted, according to the ministry.