The European Union’s foreign policy chief says the international community must impose a solution to Israel’s war on Gaza as both sides are unable to come to terms.

News Desk

GAZA: As the US-backed Israeli genocidal war on the Gaza Strip entered day 89 on Wednesday, massive aerial and artillery strikes continued to pound and level whole blocks and homes and massacre more civilians, mostly children and women.

Palestinian Information Center (PIC) said that the Israeli occupation army continued to attack different areas of Gaza last night and on Wednesday morning, killing and injuring dozens of citizens.

According to local sources, at least 15 civilians were massacred in successive Israeli attacks on Khan Yunis in southern Gaza in the morning.

A child was also killed after the Israeli army bombed the entrance of a school in Jabalia.

Red Crescent crews were also able to retrieve four bodies of civilians from the bombed Hamad City in western Khan Yunis.

An Israeli attack on a house belonging to the family of Nahhal in Khirbet al-Adas in northern Rafah claimed the lives of three civilians and injured 10 others.

Casualties were also reported when an Israeli attack targeted a house behind an UNRWA school in the east of al-Maghazi.

Yesterday, three citizens from the family of Abu Lahiya were martyred in an Israeli attack in al-Qarara town in Khan Yunis.

Dozens of casualties were also reported following Israeli attacks on other areas of Gaza last night and today.

In a related context, the health ministry in Gaza said in the afternoon that the Israeli army committed, over the past 24 hours, 10 massacres against families, which resulted in the martyrdom of at least 128 civilians.

The ministry added that the death toll from the ongoing Israeli bombardments, which started on October 7, climbed to 22,313 martyrs and the number of the wounded neared 58,000 people.

A general strike prevailed on Wednesday across the occupied West Bank and its refugee camps in condemnation of the assassination of deputy chief of Hamas Political Bureau Saleh Al-Aruri in Lebanon on Tuesday evening, amid calls for escalating activism and confrontation with Israeli occupation forces (IOF).

The youth movement in the West Bank has called on Palestinian masses to participate in performing absentee prayers to Sheikh Saleh Al-Aruri in city centers before holding massive rallies and heading to confrontation flashpoints.

Shops, banks, commercial facilities and public institutions were shut, while transport activity has been disrupted.

Palestinian parties and factions had called for joint action as well as protest rallies, holding Israel fully responsible for Al-Aruri’s assassination.

The Qassam Brigades have announced the targeting of Israeli military vehicles and the detonation of two improvised explosive devices in the south of the Gaza Strip.

In the southern city of Khan Younis, an Israeli tank and a D9 bulldozer were targeted with a Yassin 105 missile, according to Hamas’s military wing.

Qassam said its fighters also detonated two anti-personnel devices at a group of seven Israeli soldiers east of the town of Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis.

The Palestine Red Crescent says that several residential buildings around al-Amal Hospital and its own headquarters in Khan Younis have been shelled by the Israeli army, causing a state of panic and fear among displaced people seeking shelter at the hospital.

France has described comments made by Israeli ministers calling for Palestinians to be forcibly displaced from Gaza and Jewish settlers to return to the besieged territory as “provocative”.

“France condemns the comments of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir,” the French Foreign Ministry said in a statement after Ben-Gvir’s statement on Monday and Smotrich’s on Sunday.

“We call on Israel to refrain from such provocative declarations, which are irresponsible and fuel tensions.”

The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) says that 11,000 Palestinians were arrested in 2023, including 1,085 children and 300 women.

The numbers of those detained are similar to those detentions that took place in the early years of the second Intifada in 2001-2002, the PPS said.

At least 5,500 Palestinians were arrested after October 7, including 355 children and 184 women.

Currently, there are 8,800 Palestinians in Israeli jails, including 3,291 Palestinians detained without charges.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief says the international community must impose a solution to Israel’s war on Gaza as both sides are unable to come to terms.

“I believe that we have learned in these 30 years that the solution has to be imposed from outside because the two parties will never be able to reach an agreement,” he told an event in Lisbon, also warning that “if this tragedy doesn’t end soon, the entire Middle East might end up in flames.”

Iran says the assassination of the Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri proves Israel’s war on Gaza is a total failure.

“The evil acts by Israel in other countries pose a real threat to peace and security and a serious alarm for security of the countries in the region,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a statement on X.

The assassination of al-Arouri proves Israel “didn’t achieve any of its goals after weeks of war crimes, genocide, and destruction in Gaza”.

Nasser Kanaani, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, said al-Arouri’s killing will “undoubtedly ignite another surge in the veins of resistance and the motivation to fight against the Zionist occupiers, not only in Palestine but also in the region and among all freedom-seekers worldwide”.