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No Peace Until Hamas Is Destroyed, Israel PM Declares

Published

2 years ago

December 26, 2023

Israel bombed Gaza on Tuesday after its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed there won’t be peace until its Hamas rulers are destroyed and Palestinian society is “deradicalised”.

The army said it had struck more than 100 targets in 24 hours, including military sites and tunnel shafts in central Jabalia and Khan Yunis in the south, as heavy ground combat continued.

The withering military campaign launched after the Hamas attacks of October 7 has caused mass civilian casualties and widespread hunger and reduced much of the coastal territory to rubble.

The UN World Health Organization reported “harrowing” accounts of entire families killed during Christmas Eve strikes on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central area of the Gaza Strip.

Global concern has mounted and international calls for a ceasefire have multiplied but Netanyahu vowed to stay the course in an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal late Monday.

“Hamas must be destroyed, Gaza must be demilitarised and Palestinian society must be deradicalised,” he argued.

“These are the three prerequisites for peace between Israel and its Palestinian neighbours in Gaza.”

Once the fighting ends, he said, “for the foreseeable future Israel will have to retain overriding security responsibility over Gaza” and build a “temporary security zone on the perimeter” of the territory.

Netanyahu had earlier visited Israeli troops inside Gaza, then reportedly told a meeting of his conservative Likud party that “we’re not stopping… We’re intensifying the fighting in the coming days”.

The bloodiest ever Gaza war erupted when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 and killed about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

They took 250 hostages of whom 129 remain inside Gaza.

Israel launched extensive aerial bombardment and a siege followed by a ground invasion. The campaign has killed 20,674 people, mostly women and children, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.

‘Great destruction’

The Israeli army published footage showing its troops moving through the muddy war zone of shattered buildings as gunfire rings out, tanks churning up dust and a soldier firing a heavy machine gun from a window.

The army says 158 Israeli soldiers have been killed inside Gaza.

AFPTV images from Gaza City’s devastated and largely deserted Tal al-Hawa area showed dirt roads winding through mountains of rubble amid multi-storey buildings pancaked by strikes or standing askew.

“By God, the destruction is very great, and all the owners of the place have been displaced to the south,” says one Palestinian man. “May God help people through the misfortunes they are in.”

Video footage from inside the city’s Al-Quds Hospital showed an empty ward with a hole blasted into a wall, broken window glass strewn across the floor and medical equipment covered in a layer of dust.

Some residents of Al-Maghazi refugee camp returned to the ruins of their homes after strikes that Gaza’s health ministry said killed at least 70 people. AFP was unable to independently verify that toll.

One of those coming back, Zeyad Awad, said there had been no evacuation warning before the strikes.

“What should we do?” he asked. “We are civilians, living peacefully and wanting only safety and security.”

WHO staff visited a hospital treating victims of the strikes and “heard harrowing accounts” from health workers and victims, said the agency’s chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

Sean Casey, a WHO emergency medical teams coordinator, described the fate of a nine-year-old being treated who was expected to die.

“He was crossing the street in front of the shelter where his family is staying and the building beside him blew up,” he said.

The Israeli army said it was “reviewing the incident” and added that it was “committed to international law including taking feasible steps to minimise harm to civilians”.

‘Real hunger’

Vast areas of Gaza lie in ruins and its 2.4 million people are enduring dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine, alleviated only by the limited arrival of aid trucks.

“Now there is real hunger,” said Nour Ismail, who was waiting for food to be distributed in the southern city of Rafah.

“My children are dying of hunger.”

An estimated 1.9 million Gazans have been displaced, according to the UN, many fleeing south and crowded into shelters or makeshift tents in the winter cold, even as the fighting comes ever closer.

Netanyahu told Likud party members on Monday that he was ready to support the voluntary migration of civilians out of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

He reportedly told party members “our problem is not whether to allow an exit, but that there will be countries that are willing to absorb an exit”.

Hamas rejected as “absurd” any such discussion. Palestinians “refuse to be deported and displaced”, it said in a statement. “There can’t be exile and there is no other choice than to remain on our land.”

The Gaza war has heightened regional tensions between, on the one hand, Israel and its ally the United States, and, on the other, Iran-backed armed groups in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said an Israeli air strike in Syria had killed the senior Quds Force commander Razi Moussavi, and President Ebrahim Raisi vowed Israel “will certainly pay for this crime”.

In Iraq the US military launched strikes on pro-Iran groups whom it has blamed for more than 100 attacks in recent weeks, said US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The Iraqi government denounced the air strikes, which it said had killed one member of the security forces and wounded at least 18 others, as a “hostile act”.

Related Topics:Gaza Hamas Israel Israeli

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US Suspends Work Visas For Nigerian, Foreign Truck Drivers

Published

12 hours ago

August 23, 2025

Editor

The United States government has suspended the issuance of work visas for Nigerian and other foreign truck drivers, citing job security concerns and safety risks for American citizens.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the decision on Thursday, saying it takes immediate effect.

According to him, the rising number of foreign truck drivers on U.S. highways is both threatening lives and reducing opportunities for American truckers.

“Effective immediately, we are pausing all issuance of worker visas for commercial truck drivers.

“The increasing number of foreign drivers operating large tractor-trailer trucks on U.S. roads is endangering American lives and undercutting the livelihoods of American truckers,” Rubio said.

The move comes under President Donald Trump’s renewed clampdown on immigration since returning to office in January 2025.

As part of new measures, travellers from countries with high visa overstay rates or weak travel databases will be required to pay a bond of $5,000 to $15,000 before obtaining certain categories of visas.

The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria also directed all visa applicants to disclose their social media handles from the past five years, warning that failure to comply could result in denial of applications and possible ineligibility for future visas.

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Judge Orders Closure Of Trump’s Controversial ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ Migrant Camp

Published

1 day ago

August 22, 2025

Editor

A US federal judge on Thursday barred the Trump administration and Florida state government from bringing any new migrants to the detention centre known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and ordered much of the site to be dismantled, effectively shuttering the facility.

Florida’s government swiftly announced it would appeal the decision.

The detention centre was hastily assembled in just eight days in June with bunk beds, wire cages and large white tents at an abandoned airfield in Florida’s Everglades wetlands, home to a large population of alligators.

President Donald Trump, who has vowed to deport millions of undocumented migrants, visited the centre last month, boasting about the harsh conditions and joking that the reptilian predators will serve as guards.

Headline

Japan City Mulls Two-hour Daily Smartphone Limit

Published

1 day ago

August 22, 2025

Editor

A Japanese city will urge all smartphone users to limit screen time to two hours a day outside work or school under a proposed ordinance that includes no penalties.

The limit, which will be recommended for all residents in central Japan’s Toyoake City, will not be binding, and there will be no penalties incurred for higher usage, according to the draft ordinance.

The proposal aims “to prevent excessive use of devices causing physical and mental health issues… including sleep problems,” Mayor Masafumi Koki said in a statement on Friday.

The draft urges elementary school students to avoid smartphones after 9:00 pm, and junior high students and older are advised not to use them after 10:00 pm.

The move prompted an online backlash, with many calling the plan unrealistic.

“I understand their intention, but the two-hour limit is impossible,” one user wrote on social media platform X.

“In two hours, I cannot even read a book or watch a movie (on my smartphone),” wrote another.

Others said smartphone use should be a decision for families to make for themselves.

The angry response prompted the mayor to clarify that the two-hour limit was not mandatory, emphasising that the guidelines “acknowledge smartphones are useful and indispensable in daily life”.

The ordinance will be considered next week, and if passed, it will come into effect in October.

In 2020, the western Kagawa region issued a first-of-its-kind ordinance calling for children to be limited to an hour a day of gaming during the week, and 90 minutes during school holidays.

It also suggested children aged 12 to 15 should not be allowed to use smartphones later than 9:00 pm, with the limit rising to 10:00 pm for children between 15 and 18.

Japanese youth spend slightly over five hours on average a day online on weekdays, according to a survey published in March by the Children and Families Agency.