According to Israeli media, the attack caused around twenty injuries, including some children. And meanwhile the Pope complains: “They didn't let the Patriarch enter Gaza”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, reports that he will not sign a hostage agreement if it means the end of the war in Gaza, which can only end with the complete removal of Hamas. «We will not leave them in power in Gaza, just 30 kilometers from Tel Aviv. It won't happen,” he declared, in a speech also cited in Haaretz. Netanyahu told interviewer Elliot Kaufmann that Israel was “winning big” because it had weakened Hamas and Hezbollah and caused the fall of the Assad regime in Syria.
Missile falls in a playground in Tel Aviv, twenty injured
At least twenty people were injured in an attack launched on Israel by Houthi rebels. On the night between Friday 20 and Saturday 21 December, the Jewish State army said it failed to intercept a missile launched from Yemen and landed in a children's playground near Tel Aviv. “Following the sirens sounded a short while ago in central Israel, a projectile launched from Yemen was identified and unsuccessful interception attempts were made,” the IDF announced via its social media channels. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretzwhich cites sources from the Wolfson Medical Center, at least twenty people were injured in the attack. Among them there would also be children.
The claim of the Houthi rebels
Responsibility for the attack was claimed by Yemen's Houthi rebels, who said they hit “a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area” of Tel Aviv using a ballistic missile. “The failure of all Israeli defense systems means that the heart of the Zionist enemy is no longer safe,” Hezam al-Asad, a member of the political office of the Yemeni Houthi rebels, commented on X. «Our military operations – Asad specified – are legal and have the aim of stopping the aggression against our children in Gaza».
Fewer than three in ten Israelis trust Netanyahu
In the meantime, the political situation in the Jewish state continues to be heated. According to a survey by the broadcaster Channel 13, reported by Times of Israelonly 22% of the population has confidence in the current government, with 29% saying they trust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Confidence in the IDF, the armed forces, is confirmed much stronger, with 75% approval. But that same trust index drops to 47% in relation to General Herzi Halevi, chief of staff, and collapses to 24% for Defense Minister Israel Katz.
The Pope: «They didn't let the Patriarch enter Gaza»
Also returning to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Pope Francis, who in the meeting to send his best wishes to the Curia informed the cardinals of the situation in the Holy Land. “Yesterday they didn't let the Patriarch enter Gaza,” said the Pontiff, most likely referring to Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa. «Yesterday – continued the Pope – children were bombed. This is cruelty, this is not war. I want to say it because it touches the heart.”
On the cover: Playground hit by missile attack in Tel Aviv, December 21, 2024 (EPA/Abir Sultan)
