Israel and Hamas at war, day 64 | Israel continues bombing Gaza

Israel continued its bombing of the Gaza Strip on Saturday in the war against Hamas, after the United States vetoed a UN resolution that called for a ceasefire on the Palestinian territory, calling it “nightmarish” the humanitarian situation.

Fierce street fighting also continued between the Israeli army and fighters of the Palestinian Islamist movement, particularly in the towns of Gaza and Jabaliya, in the north of the small, overpopulated territory, or in Khan Younes, the main city in the south.

And dozens of airstrikes were carried out to the east, center and west of Khan Younes and northwest of Rafah (south), including a bombing near tents of displaced people in the Al Mawasi sector , according to AFP journalists on site.

The death toll continues to rise: in the last 24 hours, the bodies of at least 133 Palestinians killed have been transferred to hospitals, according to the Ministry of Health Hamas, the movement that took power in Gaza in 2007 .

The Jabaliya camp market has been transformed into a cemetery for victims of Israeli strikes, with hastily dug graves.

In a hospital in Khan Younes, men transported around ten bodies wrapped in white body bags to the morgue, under the eyes of relatives, some wiping away tears.

According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, more than 17,700 Palestinians have died in the Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, since the start of the war.

This was triggered by the unprecedented attack perpetrated on October 7 by Hamas commandos who infiltrated from Gaza into Israeli territory, during which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to reports. Israeli authorities. Around 240 people were taken hostage and taken to Gaza where 137 are still being held, according to the same source.

Israel vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, and promised to bring back the hostages.

The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility for new rocket attacks on southern Israel from the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

“Possible uncontrollable explosion”

After just over two months of war, more than half of the homes have been destroyed or damaged in the Palestinian territory, where 85% of the population has been displaced, according to the UN.

Due to overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions in the shelters of the UN agency dedicated to Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the south of the territory, certain communicable diseases such as diarrhea, acute respiratory infections and skin infections have increased significantly.

Residents of a district of Rafah where buildings were destroyed by an Israeli strike demonstrated their anger on Saturday after the American veto at the UN: “What resolution has the Security Council ever approved and implemented working for our cause and the Palestinian people? “, told AFP one of them, Mohammed al-Khatib.

Washington’s blocking of the Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” was condemned by several countries, NGOs, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Its President Mahmoud Abbas said on Saturday that he held the United States “responsible for the bloodshed” in Gaza.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen estimated that a ceasefire “would prevent the collapse of the terrorist organization Hamas”.

For its part, Iran warned of “the possibility” of “an uncontrollable explosion” in the Middle East, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the UN Security Council as ” Israel Protection Council.”

” Anger ”

In Gaza, “people are desperate, scared and angry,” lamented UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday, referring to a “nightmare humanitarian context.”

Many of the 1.9 million Gazans who fled the fighting and bombs have headed south, turning Rafah, along the closed border with Egypt, into a vast refugee camp.

Aid distributions remain very limited and insufficient, and Gazans refugees in Rafah survive as best they can.

Here, a man collects branches to make firewood. There, residents sift through the rubble after strikes in their neighborhood and salvage what they can, such as blankets.

“We fled Gaza City to Khan Yunis, and then Rafah, but where can we go after that? “, Frieze Nusseiri told AFP, at Al Najjar hospital in Rafah.

In hospitals, the injured are lying on the ground and treated on the ground, including children.

Yazid Al Arqan, part of a group of Palestinians arriving at al-Aqsa hospital in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, says they were “tortured” and left “without water or food for five days” by Israeli soldiers before being released.

Hostage dead

The toll has also increased in the West Bank, territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, where the army says it has arrested 2,200 people since the start of the war, including 1,800 members of Hamas.

Israel said Friday it had lost 93 soldiers in Gaza since the start of the war, adding that two other soldiers were injured during a failed attempt to free hostages overnight.

On Saturday, relatives of a 25-year-old Israeli hostage kidnapped on October 7 confirmed his death. Hamas previously claimed that a hostage was killed during the army’s attempt to free the hostages.

The families of those still held captive by Hamas and affiliated groups are still consumed with anguish.

“We are a strong, united family, we do our best to support each other, to stay calm. Don’t collapse,” Yechi Yehud, father of Arbel and Dolev, told AFP.

“I tell army officers in Israel that I prefer to see my children released through negotiations, not military action, because I am afraid they will be killed by the army.”

Tensions outside Gaza still raised the specter of a widening of the conflict.

On Israel’s northern border in particular, exchanges of fire have increased between the Israeli army and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas supported by Iran, since the start of the war.

On Saturday, the Israeli army said it had responded to “fire” from Lebanon towards the Misgav Am area on Israel’s northern border.