Israeli strikes kill 7 civilians in West Bank, 2 journalists in Gaza

An Israeli drone attack in Jenin City in the occupied West Bank killed at least seven civilians in the early hours of Sunday, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The attack followed a raid by the Israeli army in Jenin City and a refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported. A border police officer also was killed during the operation, Israeli police said.

The strike raised the death toll of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to 332 since the start of the current war on Gaza.

On Sunday morning, another airstrike hit the southern Gaza Strip, killing two Palestinian journalists in a vehicle, officials said. The south of Gaza is where the most intense military operations are now happening and where more than half of Gazans are crowded into the supposed safe place.

The attacks followed an announcement by Israel Defense Forces Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari on Saturday in which he claimed Israel had “dismantled” Hamas’ military leadership in northern Gaza. But the hostilities are far from over, as Israel is now expected to turn its attention to central and southern Gaza.

“The war must not be stopped until we complete all of its goals — the elimination of Hamas, the return of all our hostages and the promise that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at a Cabinet meeting on Sunday.

Among the dead reporters in southern Gaza was Hamzah Al Dahdouh, son of Wael Dahdouh, Al Jazeera’s Gaza bureau chief who previously lost much of his family in another attack. Dozens of journalists have been killed since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in early October. “As a journalist the level of fear in Gaza is great, the risk is even greater. Are we threatened? Yes, we know we are a target,” Al Jazeera’s journalist reporting from southern Gaza, Hani Mahmoud, said on Sunday.

On the same day, Israeli’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, reiterated to national radio that “encouraging voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from Gaza “is the right solution.” Its was the latest in a series of remarks made by Israeli officials suggesting Palestinians should be moved out of Gaza and Israelis should be resettled in the Strip.

However, forced displacement constitutes a war crime under international law, which EU and UK officials have already condemned.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Sunday, “stressed U.S. opposition to forcible displacement of Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza and the critical need to protect Palestinian civilians in the West Bank from extremist settler violence,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said, according to a Haaretz report.

Adding to a growing death toll in Gaza — already surpassing 22,000 civilians — “widespread famine” is looming over the enclave, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned in a report to Security Council members Friday evening.

“[More] than half a million people — a quarter of the population — are facing what experts classify as catastrophic levels of hunger,” reads the report, dated January 5 and obtained by Al Jazeera.

Guterres added that “a public health catastrophe is rapidly evolving” as “infectious diseases are spreading fast in overcrowded shelters. Sanitary conditions are appalling, with few toilets and with sewage flooding. As winter takes hold, infectious disease outbreaks will spike.”

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also met on Sunday with Lebanese army officials to discuss the situation along the border with Israel. 

Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on Saturday fired dozens of rockets at Israel after a strike last week killed Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri, raising fears that the conflict will spread to neighboring countries.

“I suggest that Hezbollah learn what Hamas has already learned in recent months: no terrorist is immune,” Netanyahu said on Sunday. “If we can, we will do it through diplomatic methods, and if not, we will act in other ways,” he added.