Hamas reported on Friday evening violent fighting between its fighters and the Israeli army in the Gaza Strip, the target of unprecedented Israeli strikes since the start of the war between Israel and the Palestinian movement on October 7.
What there is to know
- The Israeli army will “expand its ground operations” Friday evening in the Gaza Strip, its spokesperson announced;
- Strikes on Gaza increased ‘very significantly’;
- The UN warns that “much more [de gens] will soon die” because of the total siege imposed on Gaza by Israel;
- More than 8,700 people have been killed on both sides since October 7;
- Since October 21, 74 aid trucks have arrived from Egypt.
“We are facing Israeli ground incursions in Beit Hanoun (north) and al-Boureij (center). Heavy fighting is underway,” Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.
An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP overnight from Friday to Saturday that Israeli forces were operating “inside the Gaza Strip as they did” the previous night. . The Israeli army then led an incursion into the small territory before withdrawing.
These fighting took place after the army announced that it had intensified its strikes “very significantly” on the Gaza Strip and claimed it wanted to “expand” its ground operations there.
The UN, which is calling for a truce, has said it fears an “unprecedented avalanche of suffering” in the small Palestinian territory of 362 km2 besieged and deprived of everything, where some 2.4 million inhabitants are crowded together.
The Israeli strikes, very intense according to AFP images, have reached an unprecedented scale since the start of the war triggered by the bloody attack by Hamas on Israeli soil three weeks ago, indicated Israeli public television Kan .
PHOTO AFP TV
This image taken from AFP television footage shows balls of fire rising above Gaza City during an Israeli strike on October 27.
At the same time, communications and the internet were cut in Gaza, according to the Hamas government, in power in this territory since 2007. AFP journalists explained that they could only communicate in areas where they received the Israeli network.
Hamas called on the world to “act immediately to stop Israeli bombings”, while saying it was “ready” in the event of a ground offensive. The Palestinian Islamist movement also announced that it had fired “salvos of rockets” at Israel.
On Friday evening, the sky above the Gaza Strip was red and orange, ablaze with explosions and the colors of fires ignited by the strikes, according to live AFP images.
“Avalanche of suffering”
“Without fundamental change, the population of Gaza will suffer an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering,” warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
“Many more” people will “soon die” due to the siege imposed by Israel on Gaza since October 9, said in Jerusalem the head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
“Basic services are collapsing, supplies of medicine, food and water are running out, sewers are starting to overflow into the streets of Gaza,” he described.
“The smell of death is everywhere, in every neighborhood, every street and every house,” exasperates a doctor from Gaza, Raëd Al-Astal.
As a prelude to a much-mentioned ground offensive, the Israeli army has in the last 48 hours carried out two incursions with ground troops supported by planes, targeting Hamas targets, which it accuses of waging war from hospitals and use the population as a “human shield”.
Hamas has denied these accusations.
The Hamas health ministry said 7,326 people, mostly civilians including more than 3,000 children, have been killed in Gaza in Israeli retaliatory bombings since October 7.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, mainly civilians massacred on October 7 by Hamas, the deadliest attack in Israeli history, according to the authorities.
According to the army, 229 hostages, Israeli, binational or foreign, were taken to Gaza by Hamas, which has since released four women.
Hamas estimated Thursday that “nearly 50” hostages had been killed in Israeli bombings.
Crumbs ”
Israel said it wanted to “annihilate” Hamas after the October 7 attack. That day, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israeli soil from Gaza, spreading terror.
A senior Israeli officer told AFP on Friday that he had found the decapitated corpse of a baby in one of the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas.
A ground offensive in the overpopulated Gaza Strip is worrying the international community and calls for Israel to spare civilians are increasing.
PHOTO JACK GUEZ, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
An Israeli military vehicle deployed on the border with the Gaza Strip
“The result would be a humanitarian catastrophe of colossal proportions for years to come,” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.
European Union leaders have called for “pauses” in the conflict and the opening of humanitarian corridors. The United States, Israel’s ally, also said it was in favor of “humanitarian pauses”.
The UN General Assembly on Friday called by a large majority for an “immediate humanitarian truce”. The text was described as “infamy” by Israel, but praised by Hamas.
PHOTO HATEM ALI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Women prepare bread near a UN school in Rafah.
Since October 21, 74 trucks of humanitarian aid have arrived in the Gaza Strip from Egypt, according to the UN, when at least a hundred are needed per day.
“These few trucks are nothing more than crumbs which will make no difference” for the population, launched Philippe Lazzarini.
UNRWA announced that it had “significantly reduced its operations” due to bombing and lack of fuel, while 12 of the 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip had to close.
This poor territory, subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade for more than 16 years, has been placed under “total siege” since October 9 by Israel, which has cut off water, electricity and supplies. in food.
American strikes
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on the population of the north of the territory, where the bombings are the most intense, to evacuate to the south.
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians examine the rubble of a building following an Israeli bombardment in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on October 27.
But the strikes also continue to affect the south, where several hundred thousand civilians are massed near the closed Egyptian border.
The international community fears a regional conflagration, while Iran, a powerful supporter of Hamas, has issued several warnings to the United States.
The United States said it carried out strikes Thursday against munitions stockpiles used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and “affiliated groups” in eastern Syria.
Tension is also very high in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, where more than a hundred Palestinians have been killed in violence since October 7, as well as on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges There are daily shootings between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, supported by Iran and ally of Hamas.