Israeli forces carried out relentless and horrific airstrikes on Bureji refugee camp once again targeting displaced Palestinians who had taken shelter in the area after their neighbourhoods were all but destroyed in earlier strikes, reported Al Jazeera.
The concentration of air and artillery strikes in the central part of the besieged enclave, after the northern region was completely destroyed, lends credence to the narrative that the real goal of the Israeli government is to make the entire Gaza Strip uninhabitable for the Palestinian people.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted peace can only be achieved in Gaza if Hamas is destroyed, the territory demilitarised and Palestinian society “deradicalised”, after warning the war is set to intensify.
The right-wing Israeli premier’s statement comes at a time when at least 20,674 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in a brutal military campaign.
The declarations came as the World Health Organization on Monday reported “harrowing” accounts of entire families killed from Christmas Eve strikes on a refugee camp in Gaza.
Relentless Israeli strikes have devastated the Palestinian territory and the conflict has heightened tensions across the Middle East, with global pressure for a ceasefire mounting.
But in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Monday night, Netanyahu vowed to stay the course.
“Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarised, and Palestinian society must be deradicalised. These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbours in Gaza,” Netanyahu said.
He said demilitarisation “will require establishing a temporary security zone on the perimeter” of the territory “For the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza,” he said.
The Israeli army said it was “reviewing the incident”, adding it was “committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians”.—Agencies
