JERUSALEM: Israel is fighting a “bloody and difficult war,” President Isaac Herzog said in a statement to mark the conflict reaching its half-year mark on Sunday.
“Tomorrow at 6:29 am (0329 GMT), we mark six months since the cruel terror attack and the horrific massacre,” Herzog said on Saturday, referring to Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which started the war.
“Half a year since this crime against our sisters and brothers, against our state, this crime against humanity. Six months of a bloody and difficult war,” said the president, whose role is largely ceremonial
Herzog’s remarks come after the army announced it had recovered the body of Elad Katzir, a hostage it said had been murdered in captivity in Gaza in January.
They also came as tens of thousands of Israeli protested against right-wing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war.
The October 7 attack by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Of the 250 hostages seized by Palestinian militants, the army says 129 remain in Gaza, including 34 who are presumed dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive against Hamas has killed at least 33,137 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Israel fighting ‘bloody and difficult war’: president
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Israel fighting ‘bloody and difficult war’: president
- Herzog’s remarks come after the army announced it had recovered the body of Elad Katzir, a hostage it said had been murdered in captivity in Gaza in January
Israeli strike kills 2 teenagers in Gaza
- Palestinian death toll since the start of the war in October 2023 rises to 71,654
GAZA: The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said on Saturday that Israeli fire had killed three people, including two children, in two separate incidents in the northern Gaza Strip.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said Israeli forces killed the two teenagers in a drone strike, while the military claimed it eliminated two “terrorists” who planted an explosive device near troops.
The civil defense agency, which operates as a rescue service, said the drone killed the two near Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza.
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Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital said on Saturday it received the two bodies, adding they were two boys aged 13 and 15.
The territory’s Al-Shifa Hospital said it received the two bodies, adding they were two boys aged 13 and 15.
The military said the pair had posed an “immediate threat” to its soldiers.
“Earlier today ... troops operating in the northern Gaza Strip identified several terrorists who crossed the Yellow Line, planted an explosive device in the area, and approached the troops, posing an immediate threat to them,” the military said in a statement.
Under a US-brokered ceasefire that came into effect on Oct. 10, Israeli forces have withdrawn to positions behind a so-called “Yellow Line” in Gaza, though they remain in control of more than half of the territory.
“Following the identification, the (Israeli air force) struck and eliminated the terrorists in order to remove the threat,” the military said.
A military press officer claimed that its troops had “killed two terrorists and not children,” without specifying the ages of those killed.
The civil defense said another fatality was also reported in a separate incident when an Israeli quadcopter struck a group of civilians in Jabalia, also in northern Gaza.
It did not provide details on the person killed in that incident. The press officer said the military had only one incident report.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Israel on Saturday to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, mainly to discuss Gaza, two people briefed on the matter said.
Gaza has been reduced to rubble in the war that was triggered by an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Since the beginning of the war, the death toll in Gaza now stands at 71,654 people, with 481 deaths since the October ceasefire, according to Health Ministry data.
The ceasefire has largely halted fighting between Israel and Hamas, but both sides have accused each other of violating its terms.
