While trying to advance the Paris Agreement with limited success, the Director of the World Health Organization declared that “the risk of famine in Gaza is high and increasing every day and we continue to call for safe access to humanitarian supplies”.
Canadian MP attacks government and says cutting off funding to UNRWA is illegal. The Committee to Defend the Palestinian Right of Return says the suspension of funding to UNRWA is a collective punishment for 7 million refugees. 12 donor countries have suspended funding to UNRWA in Palestine after weapons were found in one of the UNRWA vehicles. However, 142 UNRWA employees were killed in the bombings in Gaza.
US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said: “There is currently no plan to impose sanctions against senior Israeli government officials” in response to claims that Biden would impose sanctions on settlers who attack Palestinians in the West Bank. In any case, Israel had made it known that “there is no place” for US sanctions against settlers in the West Bank. The sanctions signed by Biden himself affected four people.
The United States is also not considering reducing the pace of military assistance to Israel, US State Department source.
Not only that, according to the Associated Press, citing experts and analyzing satellite images, it reports that “demolition operations are underway at a depth of one kilometer along the border between Gaza and the occupied territories as a “possible buffer zone”. Israeli army units are demolishing buildings on the border with the Gaza Strip to create a buffer zone, the New York Times reported, citing Israeli officials.
According to NYT since November, Israel has carried out at least 33 controlled explosions, which have destroyed several hundred buildings. Officials, the newspaper points out, say that Israel wants to “demolish Palestinian buildings near the border in an attempt to create a safe buffer zone in the Gaza Strip” and thus complicate attacks like the one on October 7.
The Wall Street Journal says US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria are expected to begin this weekend, US officials say. This would be the response to the attack on the US base in Jordan/Syria by the Islamic resistance which led to the death of American soldiers.
The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has summoned the Israeli ambassador and demanded explanations regarding the destruction of the Belgian humanitarian agency’s headquarters in Gaza.
From Lebanon, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati said that Israel did not comply with international resolution 1701 and that Lebanon had recorded 35,000 Israeli violations of the resolution, including a violation of Lebanon’s air, land and maritime sovereignty.
According to the newspaper Al Jazeera, Israel has accepted a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, Hamas’ initial reaction was also positive, referring to the Qatari Foreign Ministry.
A member of the Israeli Knesset, Avigdor Lieberman, a former defense minister, believes that the head of government “will not risk a war in the north” and that he will seek a “peace agreement” with Saudi Arabia before withdrawing.
According to Israeli media, the IDF is close to reaching an agreement with Egypt on the Philadelphia Axis. Upcoming agreements with Egypt include abandoning military action in Rafah and evacuating residents to the north to prevent their exodus into Egypt. The agreements provide for the construction of a complex underground wall, financed by an Arab country, to prevent the presence of Israel on the axis.
Images from the social sphere show that Gazans are trying to return to their homes in the north-west of the Strip after the withdrawal of IDF forces. But there is essentially nowhere to go back. Satellite images show how the Al-Rashid shopping and entertainment street in the Gaza Strip was completely destroyed by the Israeli army.
As announced, mass demonstrations were held in Yemen on February 2nd. The slogan was: “With Gaza… we are committed until victory.” Around two million people invaded the governorates of Saada and Raymah and the districts of Sarwah and Budbudah, west of Ma’rib.
According to Yemeni sources in Hajjah Governorate, Yemen, there were four American-British raids targeting the Al-Jar area in the Abs district
Hamas apparently stated that “they will not ask for the release of the people sentenced to long prison terms”. However, Al Hadath notes that the militants “have not yet responded with full approval to the proposals developed in Paris.”
The requests of the people sentenced to long sentences translated would be: Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Saadat. And again Hassan Salama, a Hamas leader in the Al-Qassam Brigades who was sentenced to 46 life sentences and was a friend of Yahya Ayyash. And again Abbas Al-Sayyid, sentenced to 35 life sentences, responsible for the Park Hotel operation in Netanya in 2001. Finally Ibrahim Hamed who was also the official responsible for the military apparatus of the movement in the West Bank and was sentenced to 56 life sentences. The official press release is awaited.
Unlike what Iran hoped for, the pro-Iranian Iraqi Al-Nujaba militias, according to the Secretary General of the Al-Nujaba Movement in Iraq, “confirm the continuation of Iraqi Islamic resistance operations until Israeli aggression against Iraq ceases and the American occupation will not leave Iraq.”
Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General is on the same wavelength: “We will not stop attacking until the war in Gaza ends.” The Israeli Defense Minister announced that Hamas’ total losses after the defeat of Khan Yunis amounted to 10 thousand dead and 10 thousand wounded.
And now a look at the situation between Israel and Hamas as of February 2nd updated at 4.00pm.
Rocket attacks against northern Israel by militias linked to Hezbollah were recorded, 20 were launched from southern Lebanon in Kiryat Shmona. According to Israeli Army Radio, the army’s defense system intercepted a drone that had entered from southern Gaza.
The director of Kibbutz “Al-Manara”, in northern Israel, Orly Ishak, speaks, with numbers and data, of the extent of the destruction caused to the homes and buildings of the settlement due to Hezbollah missiles, 70% of the homes was damaged by Hezbollah fire, the sound of sirens was also heard in the Upper Galilee in Tel Hai, on the border with Lebanon.
In response, Israel carried out raids on the city of “Aitaroun” in southern Lebanon.
In northern Gaza the Al-Quds Brigades: claim a joint operation with the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, against the Israeli military site Fajah with 107 missiles.
Israeli tanks fired east of the Bureij refugee camp in the center of the Gaza Strip. Israeli planes fire on Deir al-Balah in the center of the Gaza Strip. In response, the Mujahideen Brigades attempted to halt Israel’s advance by bombing vehicles and soldiers west of Gaza City with volleys of short-range missiles.
Clashes continue in southern Gaza at the Khan Yunis site. Palestinian sources report the news that the bodies of 12 people have been found under the rubble of a house targeted by a bombing weeks ago in the Al-Sikka area, in the center of Khan Yunis. The Al-Qassam Brigades target an Israeli troop carrier and tank in the town of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. More clashes were recorded near the Al-Amal hospital in Khan Yunis.
Israeli raids in the West Bank, IDF operations in Nablus and Baqat al-Hatab, east of Qalqilya. Clashes recorded in Jenin.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
