Gaza war could last for a generation, Israeli minister says
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said Israel’s conflict with Hamas could last “an entire generation”.
“Complete removal of the threat will take time,” Israel’s Channel 12 reported Mr Gantz as telling those displaced from southern communities that border Gaza.
The war against Hamas, where more than 26,400 Palestinians have been killed by
Israeli fire in less than four months, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, could last “a year, a decade or even an entire generation”, he said.
His comments came after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said talks to broker a hostage deal with the militant group were constructive but “significant gaps” remained.
Hamas said the release of hostages it is holding would require a guaranteed end to the offensive in Gaza. All Israeli soldiers should be withdrawn from Gaza, said the group, which rules the enclave.
About 130 hostages, taken to Gaza by militants who killed 1,200 in raids on Israel on October 7, remain in the Gaza Strip after 100 were freed in exchange for Palestinian detainees during a four-day truce in November.
There were hopes that meetings in Paris between Israeli officials and Qatari and Egyptian mediators will usher in a two-month pause to the fighting in Gaza, where yesterday dozens were killed and injured in Israeli attacks on a UN-funded school, a cemetery and on crowds heading to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza city.
Ten people were killed in a strike on a school run by the UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, in Gaza city’s Al Rimal district, the official Wafa news agency reported.
Two people were killed when a cemetery in Al Daraj, central
Gaza, was bombed. Displaced people who headed to Al Shifa were wounded when the army opened fire in the direction of the medical centre.
Other attacks were reported across Gaza city, Beit Lahia and Khan Younis.
Hamas’s military wing, the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades, said it fired rockets into Israel in response to the killing of civilians.
Palestinians in Gaza expressed concern that major donors had halted funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, which offers vital services across the enclave.
Donors, including the US and several western nations, announced a pause in funding after Israel alleged that 12 of the agency’s employees were involved in the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas.
The relief agency said it is investigating the report and had dismissed nine of the 12 staff accused by Israel.
It warned that if funding does not resume in February, it would not be able to resume its services in Gaza and the Middle East.
“We are very worried about the decision. It is not easy to imagine losing everything. All aspects of life have been lost,” said a Gazan resident.
The UNRWA provides vital services in Gaza, where the population is facing starvation after more than three months of war, during which the delivery of aid has been restricted.
“The aid from UNRWA helps people survive, without it where will people get their food from?” asked a resident.
The agency had reported difficulties in collecting aid before the war began. In Gaza, the UNRWA
is the primary humanitarian agency, with more than two million people depending on it for “their sheer survival”.
The war has led to a humanitarian catastrophe that has displaced the majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million people and caused widespread hunger.
The agency, which employs 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza, said it would be forced to halt operations within weeks if funding was not restored.
Relatives of UNRWA staff members spoke to The National about their concerns over the funding cuts.
“If the funding to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees stops, how will we live?” a Palestinian with connections to the agency said. Another accused Israel of deliberately pressuring the agency with the aim of pushing Palestinians out of Gaza.
“They want people to leave Gaza, but other countries will not welcome them, so we remain refugees asking for our rights,” the resident said.
“We have lost our home and stability. We console ourselves with the fact that we have a job that provides us with a salary at the end of the month but everything is expensive now.”
The Arab League has accused Israel of a “systematic campaign” against the UNRWA.
“The suspension of financing to the agency robs the Palestinians of any glimmer of hope, undermines peace prospects and pushes the region into further instability,” the Arab League said.
Salah Abdel Ati, the head of tthe International Committee to Support Palestinian Rights, told The National that funding must be reinstated.
“There is a severe risk if the agency is halted that the population will not receive any of the required humanitarian aid.
“There is no apparatus in the Gaza Strip capable of distributing aid,” Mr Abdel Ati said.
“If these countries do not reconsider, they will be considered complicit in the genocide being waged against civilians in Gaza and will be violating the International Court of Justice’s decision that stated to mandate the flow of humanitarian aid.”
Mr Abdel Ati also accused Israel of striving to make Gaza uninhabitable and forcing people to evacuate.
Israel has denied accusations of genocide or claims that it is trying to force Palestinians out of Gaza.
The Arab League has accused Israel of pursuing a ‘systematic campaign’ against the UNRWA and furthering instability