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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu underwent “successful” surgery on Sunday for a hernia. The intervention was closely followed in the midst of war between his army and Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza, battered by new Israeli strikes.

Mr. Netanyahu, aged 74, is “in good shape and starting to recover,” his office said in the evening. The same evening, thousands of Israelis demonstrated again in Jerusalem to call for his resignation and the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, at a time when negotiations aimed at finding an agreement allowing such releases appear to be deadlocked. .

Nearly six months after the start of the war triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, the Israeli retaliatory offensive knows no respite in the besieged Gaza Strip, with a heavy toll of 32′ 782 dead according to Hamas, a humanitarian catastrophe and immense destruction.

Strike on hospital according to WHO

Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues relentlessly its bombings on the Gaza Strip, where at least 77 Palestinians have been killed in the last 24 hours, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas, which took power in 2007 in the Palestinian territory.

According to the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), a UN agency, “a camp on the grounds of al-Aqsa hospital was hit by an Israeli airstrike”, killing four dead. A WHO team was on mission at this hospital in Deir el-Balah (center) at the time of the strike, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told X.

The Israeli army reported a “precise strike against an operational command center of Islamic Jihad and terrorists positioned in the courtyard of Al-Aqsa hospital”, on X. The head of the WHO also indicated that 21 patients had died in al-Chifa hospital, the largest hospital complex in Gaza before the war where, according to him, there was only one bottle of water for 15 people.

The soldiers operate around hospitals in the Gaza Strip, where according to the army Palestinian fighters are hiding, including those from Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and the European Union. The army says it has killed some 200 “terrorists” in the al-Chifa hospital complex, located in the northern city of Gaza, since the start of its operation in the area on March 18.

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an attack in southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. . According to Israel, around 250 people were also kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages, including 34 who died in Gaza.

In response, the Israeli army launched a campaign of intense aerial bombardments on Gaza, followed by a ground offensive which allowed its soldiers to advance from the north to the south of the small strip of land, up to the gates of Rafah.

Netanyahu ‘must go’

Around 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded into this town bordering the closed Egyptian border, the majority of them displaced people fearing an Israeli land offensive wanted by Mr. Netanyahu, who presents Rafah as the last great bastion of Hamas.

Heightening pressure to reach a truce agreement allowing the release of the hostages, a crowd of anti-government protesters – whose organizations warned would take to the streets every evening for the next few days – gathered outside Parliament in Jerusalem, where Clashes broke out with the police, AFP noted.

Police used water cannons to push back protesters shouting “Elections!”, Netanyahu “must leave” and “Bring back (the hostages) now!” “People are angry, they are tired (…) They accuse Bibi (Netanyahu) and the government who say they are not responsible for anything,” testified Dana Rabfogel Shor, 44, from Tel Aviv.

“The Smell of Destruction”

A truce agreement, however, is still far away, despite calls from international organizations warning of a risk of famine for the majority of the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip besieged by Israel.

On Sunday, a Hamas official told AFP that his movement had not yet made a decision on whether to send a delegation to the talks in Doha or Cairo, where indirect discussions were held via international mediators. -Egypt, Qatar, United States, in recent months.

According to him, the positions between Hamas and Israel are still “too far apart.” “Netanyahu is not serious,” he accused, speaking on condition of anonymity. Mr. Netanyahu, on the contrary, accused Hamas of having “hardened” its position” with a view to a truce, while Israel, according to him, had “demonstrated flexibility”.

In the center of the country, near Ashdod, three people were seriously injured in a knife attack on Sunday, according to emergency services. “The suspect is believed to be 19 years old and from Hebron” in the West Bank, a police spokesperson said, without confirming whether the attacker had been killed.

While Pope Francis again called for a ceasefire and the release of hostages in his traditional Easter message, the small Palestinian Catholic community in Gaza celebrated in gloom. “This year the smell of destruction and gunpowder has replaced that of celebration,” said a faithful, Moussa Ayad.