(Khan Younès) European Union leaders on Thursday called for “humanitarian corridors” and “pauses” in the conflict to help the inhabitants of the besieged Gaza Strip, shelled without respite for 20 days by the army Israeli response to the bloody Hamas attack.
The Palestinian Islamist movement estimated Thursday at “nearly 50” the number of hostages killed in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip. Israeli authorities have not confirmed this figure, which AFP could not independently verify.
According to Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, more than 7,000 people have been killed in these Israeli bombings since October 7, the majority civilians including around 3,000 children.
In Israel, 1,400 people, according to the authorities, have been killed since the start of the war, including a thousand civilians who died on the day of the attack on Israel.
The international community fears the consequences of a possible land offensive by Israel on the Palestinian territory, where international aid is only arriving in dribs and drabs for the 2.4 million inhabitants trapped in humanitarian conditions disastrous.
European leaders, meeting at a summit in Brussels, expressed their “concern” on Thursday about the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza, and called for the establishment of “humanitarian corridors” and “breaks” to meet the needs of the population.
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The town of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 26, 2023
The 27 also said they were in favor of the organization of an “international peace conference”, which would take place “soon”.
“The government is silent”
On October 7, hundreds of fighters from the Islamist movement infiltrated Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip, during an attack of unprecedented violence and scale since the creation of Israel in 1948.
According to the Israeli army, 224 hostages, Israeli, bi-national or foreign, were kidnapped during this attack by Hamas, which has released four women to date.
Thursday evening, the families of hostages warned in Tel Aviv that they had reached “the end of their patience” and demanded to be received by the government.
“For twenty days the government has been silent, we do everything ourselves,” lamented Eyal Sheni, the father of Roni Sheni, a 19-year-old soldier who has been held hostage or disappeared.
Hamas published on Thursday a list of around 7,000 names of Palestinians killed according to it in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, after the credibility of its reports was questioned on Tuesday by US President Joe Biden.
White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, when asked about this, said he would not “dispute” that several thousand Palestinians had been killed. But, he added, “we should not trust” the figures put forward by the Hamas health ministry.
“Targeted raid”
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the Israeli army carried out a “targeted raid” with tanks in the north of the Gaza Strip, as a prelude to a ground offensive announced several times and confirmed Wednesday evening by Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, who promised to “annihilate” Hamas.
During this raid, the soldiers “struck numerous terrorists, their infrastructure and anti-tank rocket launch positions,” before “leaving the area,” the army announced.
The army released black and white images of the raid, showing armored vehicles and bulldozers passing through a protective fence, similar to that separating Israel from the Gaza Strip.
Videos shot by AFPTV from Sderot, in southern Israel, show a huge cloud of smoke rising over northern Gaza.
A ground offensive would be extremely dangerous in this very densely populated territory, riddled with tunnels where Hamas hides its weapons and fighters, and in the presence of hostages.
The Gaza Strip, a poor territory of 362 square kilometers, subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007, has been placed under “complete siege” by Israel since October 9. , which cut off water, electricity and food supplies there.
Satellite images released Thursday show the extent of the destruction, with entire neighborhoods razed by bombing.
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on the population of the northern Gaza Strip, where the bombardments are the most intense, to evacuate to the south. At least 1.4 million Palestinians have fled their homes since the start of the war, according to the UN.
But the strikes also continue to affect the south, close to the Egyptian border, where several hundred thousand civilians are massed.
On Thursday, a teenage girl was pulled out from the rubble of a building in Khan Younès, a town in the south of the territory. She was taken to hospital after 35 hours under the rubble.
“No place is safe in Gaza”
PHOTO MOHAMMED SALEM, REUTERS
The town of Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 26, 2023
“No place is safe in Gaza,” said the UN humanitarian affairs coordinator for the Palestinian territories, Lynn Hastings, on Thursday.
“Wherever we go, we will die,” says Rahma Saqallah, who was preparing to leave the Khan Younès region on Thursday. This woman had fled Gaza City, bombed by the Israeli army, to the south, with her husband and four children.
She left with only her daughter, the others having perished in a strike against a house in which they thought they were safe.
French President Emmanuel Macron ruled on Wednesday in Cairo that an Israeli ground offensive, if it were to be “massive”, would be an “error”. His Egyptian counterpart, Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, called for avoiding a “land invasion of Gaza”.
In the United States, President Joe Biden said Wednesday that Israel had “the right” to defend itself, but that it must do everything possible “to protect innocent civilians.”
Humanitarian “breaks”
For Washington, a ceasefire “at this stage would only benefit Hamas”, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. The White House instead suggested “pauses” to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Only a few dozen trucks loaded with aid have arrived in Gaza since October 21 via Egypt, while at least 100 trucks per day would be needed, estimates the UN, which is urgently calling for the delivery of fuel to operate generators in hospitals, pump and purify water.
Which Israel excludes, saying it would benefit Hamas and its military operations.
According to Mohammed Abu Selmeya, the director of Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the territory, “ten hospitals are already out of service” and “more than 90% of medicines and products are exhausted.”
While part of the international community fears a regional conflagration, there are daily exchanges of fire on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, supported by Iran and ally of Hamas.
Tension is also very high in the occupied West Bank, where more than a hundred Palestinians have been killed in violence since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.