Deadly strikes and shootings in the Gaza Strip hit on Friday, according to Palestinian officials and Hamas, a school and hospitals where civilians seek refuge to escape the fighting and intense bombardments by the Israeli army which have caused many to flee. ‘between them.
What there is to know
- The Hamas government in Gaza says 13 Palestinians were killed and dozens more injured in an Israeli strike on the al-Shifa hospital complex.
- Lebanese Hezbollah maintains that seven of its fighters were killed by Israeli strikes, without specifying where or when.
- The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, called on Friday for an end to the “carnage” in the Gaza Strip and an end to the siege imposed by Israel on this territory.
- Russia announced the sending of 25 tons of humanitarian aid to the population of the Gaza Strip from Egypt, which controls the Rafah crossing between Egyptian territory and Palestinian territory.
- The extension of the war between Israel and Hamas to Gaza is “now inevitable”, says Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement.
The Palestinian Islamist movement reported 13 dead in a strike on the Al-Shifa hospital complex, the largest in the Gaza Strip, which it attributed to Israel as the hospital’s director. He also claimed to have received “around fifty bodies after the bombing on Friday morning of a school” in Gaza City hosting displaced people.
The Israeli army, which did not immediately react to these assertions, indicated Thursday evening that one of its divisions was carrying out major operations in an area “very very close” to the hospital.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, for his part, reiterated that Israel was not seeking to “govern or occupy” the Gaza Strip (from which Israel withdrew in 2005 after 38 years of occupation), more than a month after the start of the war with Hamas which led to a dramatic humanitarian situation in this besieged Palestinian territory, according to the UN and NGOs.
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, called on Friday for an end to the “carnage” in the Gaza Strip.
“Raving entire neighborhoods is not a response to the heinous crimes committed by Hamas. Instead, it creates a new generation of aggrieved Palestinians who are likely to perpetuate the cycle of violence. The carnage must simply stop,” he said in a press gallery, according to an UNRWA statement sent to the media on Friday.
UNRWA also announced that more than 100 of its employees have died in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
“Annihilated. Confirmation that more than 100 UNRWA colleagues were killed in one month. Parents, teachers, nurses, doctors, support staff. @UNRWA is in mourning, Palestinians are in mourning, Israelis are in mourning. To end this tragedy, we need a humanitarian ceasefire now,” his boss wrote on the X network.
On October 7, commandos from Hamas, the movement that controls the Gaza Strip, carried out on Israeli soil a bloody attack against civilians of a scale and violence never seen since the creation of Israel in 1948.
Hamas “military quarter”
In retaliation, Israel declared a war to “eradicate” Hamas, relentlessly shelling the Gaza Strip, in the hands of the Islamist movement. Since then, Israeli bombings have killed 11,078 people, mainly civilians, including 4,506 children, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
PHOTO KENZO TRIBOUILLARD, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
This photo taken from the Israeli side of the border with the Gaza Strip shows smoke rising into the sky following an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip on November 10.
On the Israeli side, at least 1,400 people have died since the start of the war, according to the authorities, the majority of them civilians killed on the day of the attack by Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union. Additionally, 239 people were kidnapped on October 7 and are being held in Gaza.
While Israeli ground troops are supported by bombardments, the army said it was targeting in particular a “military quarter”, adjacent to Al-Shifa hospital, described as the “heart” of the Israeli operational and intelligence activities. Hamas.
“Thirteen martyrs and dozens injured in an Israeli strike on the Al-Shifa compound today” in Gaza City, Salama Maarouf, head of the Hamas press office, said on Friday.
PHOTO KHODER AL-ZAANOUN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
The bodies of those killed in an Israeli strike lie on the ground near al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on November 10.
The director of the hospital, Mohammed Abou Salmiya, who spoke of Israeli tank fire on the maternity ward, reported around fifty deaths in a new report.
An AFP journalist saw at least seven bodies near the hospital.
A 32-year-old father who calls himself Abou Mohammed told AFP that he took refuge in al-Shifa, in the west of Gaza City, with 15 of his relatives after bombings on his neighborhood in ballast.
“No safe place”
“There is no safe place, the army hit al-Shifa, I don’t know what to do anymore,” he said.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
A woman injured in an Israeli strike and staying at al-Shifa hospital moves south after fleeing as Israeli tanks move deeper into the Palestinian enclave on November 10.
For years, Israel has accused Hamas of using hospitals to carry out attacks or hide tunnels, and civilians as human shields.
“Israeli tanks are besieging four hospitals in western Gaza City,” endangering tens of thousands of patients and displaced people who have taken refuge there, the Hamas Ministry of Health said on Friday. Witnesses notably saw the al-Rantissi children’s hospital surrounded by tanks.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said Israeli shooters fired at al-Quds hospital on Friday, causing at least one death.
Israel has agreed to daily humanitarian “pauses” to allow civilians to flee the northern Gaza Strip to the south, according to the United States.
The Israeli army opened “an evacuation corridor” on Sunday, but Palestinians reported persistent fighting along this route, used by 100,000 people since Wednesday, according to data from the Israeli army and the Coordination Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinian families fleeing Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza to southern areas walk along a road on November 10.
” No water ”
Hundreds of thousands of refugees are now crowded into the south of the small territory, in disastrous conditions.
“We have no water, no toilets, no bakery,” said Oum Alaa al-Hajin, who found refuge in the al-Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, in the south, after days of walk.
According to OCHA, the number of displaced people in Gaza now stands at 1.6 million people out of the 2.4 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.
The narrow territory has been deprived of water, electricity, food and medicine due to the total siege imposed by Israel since October 9.
The Rafah terminal also reopened on Thursday to allow the evacuation of foreigners, dual nationals and injured people.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Egyptian paramedics transfer an injured Palestinian to the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip on November 9.
UN meeting
In the north, where hundreds of thousands of people still live, “the lack of food is increasingly worrying”, worries the UN.
While the Israeli army operates in the Gaza Strip, rockets continue to be fired daily from this territory towards Israel, where sirens sounded in Tel Aviv on Friday. Hamas’ military wing said it targeted the town with rockets.
According to Israeli air defense, around 9,500 rockets have been launched towards Israel since October 7, most of them intercepted.
The UN Security Council is due to meet again on Gaza on Friday, the day before an emergency meeting in Riyadh of the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) which fear an escalation of conflict in the region.
Israel struck in Syria at dawn on Friday in response to a drone which fell on a school in Eilat (South) on Thursday, without causing any casualties, the Israeli army said.
The army also indicated “continue its operations to destroy the infrastructure” of Hezbollah in Lebanon, with which exchanges of fire are daily. The powerful pro-Iranian movement reported on Friday the death of seven of its fighters killed by Israel, without giving details.