Israel to Blinken: S. Gaza fight to ‘intensify’
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday that Israel will “intensify” military efforts in the Khan Yunis area of southern Gaza until Hamas leaders are captured or killed and the Israeli hostages are freed.
The Israeli military in recent days has announced plans to continue the war with fewer troops and less bombing. But Gallant made clear that the pursuit of Hamas militants who may have fled northern Gaza will be stepped up.
Blinken was in Israel for talks with President Isaac Herzog, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other leaders aimed at curbing civilian deaths and finding common ground on Gaza’s postwar future. Blinken, who arrived in Tel Aviv after visits with leaders in Turkey, Greece, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, is also pressing diplomatic efforts to keep the war from expanding across the Middle East.
Desire to normalize relations seen
Blinken said the nations he visited expressed interest in helping plan Gaza’s future as well as normalizing relations with Israel. He also said he also would visit with the families of some of the hostages and “discuss our relentless efforts to bring everyone home and back with their families.”
“The secretary reaffirmed our support for Israel’s right to prevent the terrorist attacks of Oct. 7 from being repeated and stressed the importance of avoiding further civilian harm and protecting civilian infrastructure in Gaza,” the State Department said in a statement.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir reached out to Blinken in a social media post: “Mr. Secretary Blinken, it’s not the time to speak softly with Hamas, it’s time to use that big stick.”
Hamas chief pleads for more arms
Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday urged Muslim states to support his war against Israel with weapons as well as humanitarian aid, saying Hamas’ fight is not solely for the Palestinian people.
“We see that the countries of the world are pouring weapons to the occupation through air bridges and aircraft carriers, and the time has come to support the resistance with weapons,” said Haniyeh, speaking at the World Federation of Muslim Scholars Conference in Doha, Qatar.
Haniyeh said the Hamas-led attack on Israel was fueled by the “marginalization” of the Palestinian issue, an Israeli government that he said prioritized displacement of Palestinians, clashes with Israeli police at the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the “normalization and integration of occupation” by Israel in the region.
“Our Palestinian people and our resistance decided that a reality in this way cannot be confronted with traditional means,” Haniyeh said.
Despite 100 days of massive destruction across the Gaza Strip, Israel has failed to liberate one live hostage, he said. The more than 100 Israeli hostages being held by the militants will not be freed until the thousands of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons are released, he stressed.
“The declared goals of the war on Gaza are to eliminate Hamas, recover the prisoners and implement the displacement plan,” Haniyeh said. “And I tell you that the enemy, despite the destruction and massacres, has failed to achieve any goal of the war.”
Nine Israeli troops killed in Gaza
Monday was one of the deadliest days yet for Israeli troops in Gaza with nine killed, according to the military. Six died in a central Gaza blast, and three more were killed in battles across southern Gaza, the Israeli military said Tuesday.
Israeli media are reporting that Idan Amedi, an actor on the hit Netflix show “Fauda,” was seriously wounded in the Gaza Strip Monday while on reserve duty. Amedi, 35, was covered in shrapnel wounds and was sedated and intubated
KYIV, Ukraine – Russia’s recent escalation of missile and drone attacks is stretching Ukraine’s air defense resources, a Ukrainian air force official said Tuesday, leaving the country vulnerable in the 22-month war unless it can secure further weapons supplies.
“Intense Russian air attacks force us to use a corresponding amount of air defense means,” air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat told national television. “That’s why we need more of them, as Russia keeps increasing its (air) attack capabilities.”
As both sides fight from largely static positions along the roughly 930-mile front line, recent Russian attacks have used large numbers of various types of missiles in an apparent effort to saturate air defense systems and find gaps in Ukraine’s defenses.
The massive barrages – more than 500 drones and missiles were fired between Dec. 29 and Jan. 2, according to officials in Kyiv – are also using up Ukraine’s weapons stockpiles.
Ukraine uses weapons from the Soviet era and more modern ones provided by its Western allies. Authorities want to build up the country’s own weapons manufacturing capabilities, and analysts say those plants are among Russia’s recent targets.
“At the moment, we are completely dependent on the supply of guided air defense missiles, for both Soviet and Western systems,” Ihnat said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Jan. 7 that “we lack a very concrete and understandable thing, that is air defense systems,” to protect civilian areas and troop positions.
“We lack (air defense systems) both on the battlefield and in our cities,” he told a Swedish defense conference.
However, a plan by the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden to send to Kyiv billions of dollars in further aid is stuck in Congress, and Europe’s pledge in March to provide 1 million artillery shells within 12 months has come up short, with only about 300,000 delivered so far.
U.S.-made
surface-to-air
Patriot at an Israeli hospital, the Israeli news site Ynet reported Tuesday. He was in stable condition.
Ynet said Amedi has been on reserve duty since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Israel has enlisted roughly 360,000 reserve soldiers from all walks of life in its war against Hamas.
In Beirut, a drone targeted a car during the funeral procession of high-ranking Hezbollah military commander Wissam Tawil, causing several injuries in the southern Lebanese town of Kherbit Selim, the Lebanese National News Agency reported. Tawil was killed Monday by an apparent Israeli drone strike on his SUV.
And Hezbollah senior commander Ali Hussein Barji, reportedly the architect of several drone attacks on northern Israel, was killed in an apparent strike in southern Lebanon, the militant group said.
Gaza residents face starvation
Nearly 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes by the fighting, and a quarter of its residents face starvation, with only a trickle of food, water, medicine and other supplies entering through the Israeli siege.
The U.N. humanitarian office, known as OCHA, warned that the fighting was severely hampering aid deliveries. Several warehouses, distribution centers, health facilities and shelters have been affected by the military’s evacuation orders, it said. Some bakeries in the central city of Deir al-Balah have been forced to shut down. A U.N. warehouse was hit last week, with a staffer killed, and five other staffers were detained by the military, with two still held.
The situation is even more dire in northern Gaza, which Israeli forces cut off from the rest of the territory in late October. Tens of thousands of people who remain there face shortages of food and water.
The World Health Organization has been unable to deliver supplies to the north for two weeks. OCHA said the military rejected five attempted aid convoys to the north over that period, including planned deliveries of medical supplies and fuel for water and sanitation facilities.
Contributing: The Associated Press missiles give Ukraine an effective shield against Russian airstrikes, but the cost is up to $4 million per missile and the launchers cost about $10 million each, analysts say.
Speaking at a meeting with the Russian military brass, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu declared that Kyiv’s efforts to bolster its firepower “won’t change the situation on the line of contact and will only drag out the military conflict.”
It was not possible to verify either side’s battlefield claims.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has increasingly targeted Moscow-occupied Crimea and Russian border regions with longrange strikes.
In the latest strike, two drones fell on the premises of a fuel and energy facility Tuesday in the Russian city of Orlov, about 150 miles from the Ukrainian border, Gov. Andrei Klychkov said.
Three people were injured and a fire broke out but was quickly extinguished, Klychkov said.
The U.K. Defense Ministry pointed to repeated signs of shortcomings in Russia’s air defenses. Ukrainian strikes on military targets in Crimea on Jan. 4 demonstrate “the ineffectiveness of Russian air defenses in protecting key locations,” it noted Tuesday.