Source: Mondoweiss.net
As Israel’s assault on Gaza reaches 100 days, an estimated 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, injured, or are missing. Still Netanyahu declares: “No one will stop us; not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else calling the ICJ.”
Casualties
- 23,968+ killed* and at least 60,582 wounded in the Gaza Strip.
- 387+ Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem
- Israel revises its estimated October 7 death toll down from 1,400 to 1,147.
- 522 Israeli soldiers killed since October 7, and at least 2,193 injured.**
*This figure was confirmed by Gaza’s Ministry of Health on January 14. Some rights groups put the death toll number closer to 31,000 when accounting for those presumed dead.
**This figure is released by the Israeli military.
Key Developments
- Israel’s Netanyahu says, “No one will stop us; not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else calling the International Court of Justice (ICJ).”
- Yoav Gallant, Minister of Defence, storms out of war cabinet meeting on Saturday evening after tense argument with Netanyahu.
- Paltel says Israeli air strike killed two workers, Bahaa Al-Rayes and Nader Abu Hajjaj, in their vehicle while they were in Khan Yunis to fix internet blackout.
- Heavy rain and strong winds knock down tents housing displaced Palestinians and flood shelters and homes in Gaza.
- Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA chief, says “the massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss, and grief of the last 100 days are staining our shared humanity.”
- Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: “Just About 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, reported missing, or wounded since 7 October 2023 due to Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip”
- Overnight, Palestinians recovered bodies of 50 people after Israeli airstrikes bombed three-story residential building housing families of Al-Shubaki, Al-Zoukh, Al-Hassouna, and Al-Qassim in central Gaza City.
- Gaza’s Ministry of Health says Israeli forces killed 337 medical staff and arrested 99 others since October, bombed 203 medical centers and clinics, destroyed 121 ambulances and damaged 30 hospitals, forcing it to stop operating completely.
- Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says International Criminal Court (ICC) agreed to investigate Israel’s crimes against journalists in Gaza.
- Namibia criticizes Germany who said it will interfere as third party to provide evidence in the ICJ case in support of Israel.
Netanyahu declares “no one will stop us” as Minister of Defence storms out of war cabinet meeting
On the 100-day mark of Israel’s aggression on the Gaza Strip, nearly 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, injured, or buried under the rubble.
Yet, Israel appears to be unabated, supported by the U.S., UK, and European countries, ignoring international calls for a ceasefire or calls to allow sufficient humanitarian aid to enter the enclave.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Saturday evening that the Israeli military invasion of Gaza will not stop “until complete victory.”
“No one will stop us; not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else calling the International Court of Justice (ICJ),” he said.
Last week, Israel sat in the dock to face a case filed by South Africa at the ICJ accusing Tel Aviv of committing genocidal actions and collective crimes against Palestinians in Gaza, including indiscriminate bombings, destroying schools and public institutions, and officials’ statements that incited the annihilation Palestinians.
Netanyahu said South Africa’s case was an “international defamation campaign [that] will not weaken our hands or weaken our determination to fight to the end.”
However, as Netanyahu was making his speech, hundreds of Israelis traveled to his home in the coastal town of Caesarea, and other cities, calling him to resign and to bring on an early election as well as releasing Israeli captives in Gaza.
Benny Gantz, an opposition figure and a war cabinet member, was among the 120,000 Tel Aviv protesters on Saturday evening.
Israel has failed so far to achieve any of the goals it declared for the war in Gaza since October. Hamas movement is still fighting Israeli forces; the army returned none of the Israeli captives alive in military operations, while Gaza is still a Palestinian stronghold for resistance against occupation.
Aside from dealing with protestors and a corruption trial, Netanyahu also faces tensions inside the war cabinet after Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Defence, stormed out of a meeting on Saturday evening, the Times of Israel reported.