Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni will participate tomorrow in Egypt at the international peace summit organized in Cairo by the Egyptian president, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, on the conflict in the Middle East. Palestinian President Abu Mazen will also be there.
Meanwhile, the battle against Hamas is increasingly moving to Gaza and the invasion of the Strip by Israeli troops is expected to be imminent. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking to the soldiers of the Golani Brigade deployed in front of Gaza with tanks ready, urged them to "fight like lions". "We will win - he insisted - with all our strength." «Now you see Gaza from afar, soon you will see it from inside. The order will come,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced to the troops. "The battle is moving to Hamas territory" in Gaza, echoed Yaron Finkelman, commander of Israel's Southern Front, the man on the front line facing the Strip. «This war - he explained - was imposed on us by a ruthless enemy who dealt us a significant blow. We stopped and blocked them. We are hitting them hard and we are determined to prevail on their own territory."
While the rain of rockets arriving, even at the same time, from the Strip and Lebanon has increased, and during the night more than 100 Hamas targets were hit by Israel in Gaza (among them also a member of the Hamas naval command, Amjad Majed Muhammad Abu 'Odeh, believed by Israel to be co-responsible for the attack on 7 October and the massacre of Israeli civilians), Israel says that most of the approximately 200 people kidnapped by Hamas terrorists and taken to the Strip are alive. «Most of the hostages are alive. In Gaza there are also corpses" of people killed in Israel and "brought to the Strip", the army declared.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden's visit to Tel Aviv has convinced Israel to give the OK to the passage of humanitarian aid from Egypt through the Rafah crossing , starting today, for the exhausted population of the Palestinian enclave. The crossing, however, remains closed for the moment.
In the Strip the situation is worsening by the hour with around a million displaced people. The deaths reached 3,785, including 1,524 minors (many from the same families), with 12,493 injured. In Israel the victims are over 1,400 (306 soldiers) and the number of displaced people - from the south and the north under Hezbollah fire - is estimated at around 600,000. The warning sirens - which force entire areas of the country to run into shelters - have sounded several times in the south and center of the country, including Tel Aviv.
The conflict always risks spreading: in the last few hours a US Navy warship shot down three missiles launched from Yemen and headed north. The USS Carney, a Navy destroyer, was in the Red Sea when it intercepted the three missiles, according to US media. It was not immediately certain whether they were directed against Israel but the Houthi rebels, backed by Iran, expressed support for the Palestinians and threatened Israel.
Hostages freed
In the evening, Hamas announced that it had freed two hostages, mother and daughter, also with American citizenship. This - Hamas said - is to "demonstrate to the American people how wrong the statements of Biden and his fascist administration are". Hamas then thanked the
Qatari mediation. Israeli TV reports it
(Unioneonline/D)