Hamas-Israel war: three Israelis missing since October 7 announced held hostage in Gaza

Statements from Catherine Colonna and Antony Blinken, gathering at the funeral of Saleh Al-Arouri in Beirut, Hezbollah which announces that four of its fighters are dead... Le Figaro takes stock of the situation in the Middle East this Thursday, January 4.

Three Israelis missing since the attack by Hamas on October 7 are being held hostage in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army announced Thursday. “Three citizens missing until now have been identified as hostages and their families have been informed,” said army spokesperson Daniel Hagari. This announcement brings to 132 the number of people still held hostage in Gaza since October 7, according to figures from the Israeli authorities.

The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken and his French counterpart Catherine Colonna discussed on Wednesday January 3 measures aimed at “avoiding escalation in Lebanon and Iran” after attacks in these two Middle Eastern countries, it was announced on Thursday. January 4 the US State Department. The two ministers discussed on the telephone "the importance of measures aimed at preventing the conflict in Gaza from spreading, including measures aimed at reducing tension in the West Bank and avoiding escalation in Lebanon and Iran." , according to a statement from spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Antony Blinken, the American Secretary of State, is due to take off Thursday evening for the Middle East, for a new regional tour with a stop planned in Israel, at a time when fears of a regional escalation of the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas are increasing. French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called on Israel to “avoid any escalatory attitude, particularly in Lebanon”, after Hamas number two, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in an attack attributed to Israel on the suburbs of Beirut. In the Middle East, Blinken will plead for an “immediate” increase in humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to his spokesperson.

Hundreds of people participated this Thursday in Beirut in the funeral of Hamas number two and two of his companions killed in a strike attributed to Israel, calling for a response. Saleh al-Arouri and six other leaders and executives of this formation were killed Tuesday evening in this strike against a Hamas office in the southern suburbs of Beirut, stronghold of the Lebanese Islamist movement Hezbollah.

The coffins of Saleh al-Arouri, Azzam al-Aqraa, a leader of Hamas's military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, and Mohammad al-Raïs, a cadre of the movement, were wrapped in Palestinian and Hamas flags. A machine gun was placed on each of them during the prayer which took place in a mosque in a working-class district of Beirut, according to an AFP journalist. Amid heavy gunfire, the funeral procession then headed towards the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila where the three men were to be buried. Chanting “Allah Akbar” (God is greatest), funeral participants waved the green Hamas flag, but also Palestinian and Palestinian Islamic Jihad flags.

Pro-Iranian Hezbollah announced early this Thursday the death of four of its fighters, including a local official, in southern Lebanon, bringing to 129 its total losses in clashes with Israel for nearly three months. A source close to the Lebanese Islamist movement told AFP that the four fighters were killed during the night from Wednesday to Thursday in the border town of Naqoura. Among them is the party leader in this locality. According to the official National News Agency (ANI), Israeli aircraft “carried out raids on the center of Naqoura which destroyed a home and damaged surrounding houses.”

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said Thursday he was “very concerned” after comments from senior Israeli officials calling on Palestinians to leave Gaza. “Very disturbed by the statements of senior Israeli officials on plans to transfer civilians from the Gaza Strip to third countries,” Volker Türk said on the social network protected within an occupied territory or their expulsion from that territory.

The Palestinian Hamas Health Ministry announced Thursday that Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip had left 22,438 dead since the war began on October 7. Among these deaths are 125 people killed in the last 24 hours, said the ministry, which also reported 57,614 people injured since October 7.

Fourteen Palestinians were killed on Thursday, including nine children, in Israeli strikes on Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younes, in the Gaza Strip, a Health Ministry official told Reuters. This information could not be independently verified.

In the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army continued its air raids during the night from Wednesday to Thursday, notably in Khan Younes (south) and Deir al-Balah (center), where the Hamas Ministry of Health reported of deaths.

“Hamas still has significant capabilities in Gaza,” national security council spokesman John Kirby said in Washington. “We believe that reducing and defeating Hamas's capabilities to carry out attacks in Israel is an absolutely achievable goal for Israeli military forces. It can be done, militarily. Will his ideology be eliminated? No. And is the group likely to be annihilated? Probably not (...),” he added.

Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, called on Monday for a return of Jewish settlers to Gaza after the current war, and to “encourage” the Palestinian population to emigrate, the day after a similar call from his colleague far-right, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is already accused of having greatly strengthened the influence of settlers in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry in a statement called on the international community to act in the face of the “persistence” of the Israeli government in violating international laws “through its declarations and actions.” Qatar, which played a mediating role in the truce between Israel and Palestinian Hamas at the end of November, also “condemned in the strongest terms” the comments of the two ministers. “The policy of collective punishment and forced displacement practiced by the occupation authorities against the inhabitants of Gaza will not change the fact that Gaza is Palestinian land and will remain Palestinian.” Kuwait also followed in the footsteps of its Gulf neighbors, and warned against “Israeli plans to displace the inhabitants of Gaza in particular, and the Palestinian people in general”.

The United Arab Emirates, which normalized relations with Israel in 2020, also denounced “in the strongest terms the extremist statements” of the two ministers. The Emirati Ministry of Foreign Affairs “expresses its categorical rejection of these offensive statements and all practices (...) which threaten to aggravate escalation and instability in the region,” he said in a statement. communicated.

In Israel, army chief of staff Herzi Halevi indicated that his troops were on alert on the border with Lebanon (north), an almost daily scene of exchanges of fire since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas. “We are at a very high level of preparation in the North (...) I believe that our preparation is at its maximum level,” he said, referring to “opportunities” to “create significant change” In the region.