34 Palestinians lost their lives following a new attack by Israeli armed forces carried out on Saturday (20/09) in Gaza City and the broader Gaza Strip, destroying underground tunnels and booby-trapping structures with explosives, according to Gaza health authorities. It should be noted that the Israeli attack took place at the moment when ten countries – including Australia, Belgium, Britain and Canada – are planning to recognize an independent Palestinian state on Monday (22/09), before the annual leaders’ summit at the UN General Assembly.
Read: Hamas propaganda poster with the 48 remaining hostages – “A farewell image”
Israel: Gaza’s high-rise buildings targeted
It is emphasized that the intensive Israeli military demolition campaign targeting high-rise buildings in Gaza City began this week alongside a ground offensive. Israeli forces, which control the eastern suburbs of Gaza City, have been pounding the Sheikh Radwan and Tel Al-Hawa areas in recent days, from which they will be positioned to advance into the central and western parts of the city, where most of the population has taken refuge. The army estimates that over the past two weeks it has destroyed up to 20 high-rise apartment buildings in Gaza City and believes that approximately 350,000 people have left the area since early September. However, about 600,000 others remain. This number includes some of the Israeli hostages being held by Hamas.
The hostage poster
Hamas’s military wing today released photographs of hostages who remain captive in the Gaza Strip, warning that if Israel continues its assault on Gaza City, they risk suffering the same fate as an Israeli pilot who has been missing since 1986. Of the 251 people who were abducted during Hamas’s attack against Israel on October 7, 2023, which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip, 47 continue to be held in that territory, of whom 25 are considered dead by the Israeli military. The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, published old photographs of 46 of them on their Telegram channel, with each bearing the name of Ron Arad, the Israeli Air Force pilot who disappeared after his capture during a mission in Lebanon in 1986, during the Lebanese civil war. “Because of the obsession of (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu and the submission of (Chief of Staff Herzi) Halevi (…) here is a farewell photograph taken at the beginning of the operation” inside Gaza City, according to a text from the Brigades accompanying the photographs. Ron Arad was initially held prisoner by Shiite organizations in Lebanon and is now considered dead, while his body was never returned to Israel. His fate has preoccupied Israel for decades, where the repatriation of missing or captured soldiers, alive or dead, is considered a national duty.
