On Saturday night, thousands of Israelis took to the streets once again in demonstrations against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, demanding fresh elections and for the government to negotiate the immediate release of hostages remaining in Gaza, as the war reaches its six-month mark. Those demands could become the greatest threat to Netanyahu, The Post reported late last month, when tens of thousands of people protested for consecutive nights.
Netanyahu is also facing pressure from allies, including the United States, over Israel’s punishing military campaign in Gaza. President Biden said last week that the United States would reassess its policy on the war in Gaza if Israel does not take immediate steps to address the humanitarian situation and protect aid workers.
Around the world, officials marked the grim anniversary of the war. U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said that while the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas was a day of “horror,” Israel’s war in Gaza had “brought relentless death & destruction.” He called for the release of remaining hostages and said “nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” Martin Griffiths, the U.N.’s top humanitarian official, said the end of the conflict “is so long overdue.”
The World Health Organization said that six months of war had led to the “destruction” of Gaza’s al-Shifa and Nasser hospitals, which “has broken the backbone of the already ailing health system.” Only 10 of Gaza’s 36 main hospitals remain functional, it said, adding that “the systematic dismantling of health care must end.” Israel has long maintained that Hamas was using some hospitals for their operations.
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Britain will send a Royal Navy ship to boost aid to Gaza through an international maritime corridor and an upcoming U.S.-led temporary pier, the Foreign Office said in a statement. “Gazans are facing a devastating humanitarian crisis and there needs to be a significant increase in the volume of vital supplies entering the territory by all routes,” the statement said.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza is “an empty shell with human graves” and “completely nonfunctional,” the WHO said, after its team visited the facility following a two-week siege by Israeli forces, who said they battled Hamas militants and recovered weapons at the complex. Inside the compound, “many dead bodies were partially buried with their limbs visible,” the WHO said, adding that patients were held in “abysmal conditions during the siege.”
The Israeli military said it recovered the body of an Israeli hostage, Elad Katzir, from Khan Younis in Gaza. Katzir, who was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz in Israel on Oct. 7, was killed in captivity, the Israel Defense Forces said Saturday. Katzir had been filmed alive twice in captivity, and his mother was released in November during a pause in fighting. Responding to the news of his death, his sister, Karmit Palti Katzir, accused the Israeli leadership of “abandoning” him and the remaining hostages in Gaza in a social media post. “It was possible to save him if a deal would’ve happened on time,” she wrote.
World Central Kitchen demanded that an independent commission investigate the killing of seven of its aid workers in IDF airstrikes in Gaza. Earlier, the Israeli military dismissed two officers, reprimanded three commanders and apologized for the incident, after which WCK suspended its operations in Gaza.
At least 33,175 people have been killed and 75,886 injured in Gaza since the war began, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants and says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and says 260 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operation in Gaza
