The Israeli army continued its bombings against Hamas in the besieged Gaza Strip on Wednesday, despite civilian losses increasing day by day and cries of alarm over the humanitarian disaster hitting the Palestinian territory.
What there is to know
- On Tuesday, thick clouds of smoke rose into the sky over Gaza after strikes, particularly over Khan Younes. Nighttime strikes also targeted the neighboring town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border;
- According to a latest report, 21,100 people, mostly women, adolescents and children, were killed in Israeli military operations in Gaza;
- Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he wanted to intensify the fighting in the coming days;
- In this small territory, subjected by Israel to a total siege since October 9, the war has forced 1.9 million people to flee their homes, or 85% of the population according to the UN;
- The inflow of humanitarian aid has not increased significantly, despite the UN Security Council passing a resolution on Friday calling for its “immediate” and “large-scale” delivery.
The population of Gaza is in “great danger”, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, stressing that “hunger and despair” were worsening in the war-ravaged territory.
More than two and a half months after the start of the war, triggered by the bloody attack launched on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel, the Hamas Ministry of Health announced Wednesday that 21,110 people, mostly civilians, , including 6,300 women and 8,800 children, were killed in Gaza by Israeli military operations.
PHOTO HATEM ALI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians who fled Israeli bombings find themselves in Rafah.
In Israel, the attack left around 1,140 dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures. Around 250 people have been kidnapped by Hamas, of whom 129 remain detained in Gaza, according to Israel.
On the ground, the fighting knows no respite.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Buildings in Beit Lahia in ruins after Israeli bombings.
Witnesses reported on Wednesday Israeli strikes and ground fighting in Khan Younes, the large city in southern Gaza considered by Israel to be an important Hamas stronghold, but also intense bombardments on the al-Maghazi refugee camps. and al-Boureij, in the center.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, in power since 2007 in the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for the October 7 attack, shelling the small territory and launching a ground offensive there on October 27 which cost the lives of 164 soldiers. , according to the army.
“Hungry” residents
In the territory subjected to a total siege by Israel since October 9, the war has caused immense destruction, knocked out most hospitals and pushed 1.9 million people, or 85% of the population, from their homes. , according to the UN, many of whom fled several times as the fighting progressed.
Humanitarian aid, whose entry into Gaza is controlled by Israel, only arrives in very limited quantities.
A resolution adopted on December 22 by the UN Security Council, demanding the delivery of aid “on a large scale”, remains without effect, underlined Wednesday the director general of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
PHOTO MOHAMMED DAHMAN, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians killed by Israeli bombings are transported on a cart.
The WHO said its team on the ground reported Tuesday that the need for food “continues to be acute” throughout the Gaza Strip. “Hungry people blocked our convoy in the hope of finding food,” the organization reported.
“What is happening on Palestinian soil these days goes beyond a catastrophe and a genocide,” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said Tuesday.
The conflict “will last for many more months,” warned Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
PHOTO MOHAMMED AL-MASRI, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
Palestinians rest next to their belongings as they flee their homes after being ordered by the Israeli army to evacuate the area, in Bureij, in the central Gaza Strip.
” A ceasefire ”
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health, 195 people were killed in 24 hours in Gaza by Israeli forces. The ministry said on Wednesday that the army had notably targeted a house near Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younes, leaving 22 dead and 34 injured.
PHOTO HATEM ALI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians shelter from Israeli bombings in the European hospital in Khan Younes.
The army is “increasingly targeting the surroundings of the Nasser hospital” in Khan Younès, the most important in the south of the territory, declared the spokesperson for the ministry, Ashraf al-Qudra, saying “we fear that there will be a repeat of the same scenario as at the al-Chifa hospital in Gaza City, which was stormed by Israeli soldiers despite the presence of thousands of civilians, sick, staff and displaced people.
Several hospitals in Gaza have been bombed, besieged or stormed by the army since the start of the war.
Israel claims that Hamas has set up bases in these hospitals, as in other civilian buildings including schools and mosques, using the population as “human shields”. The Islamist movement, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, denies these accusations.
On Wednesday, Palestinians who had taken refuge in a UN school in the Nuseirat camp, in central Gaza, once again fled south to escape incessant bombings.
They loaded mattresses, blankets, luggage and shopping bags onto carts or onto the roofs of their cars, according to AFP images.
“Even UN schools are no longer safe”, “first we were moved to Nuseirat, then to Rafah. People don’t know where to go anymore,” said one man. “Our message to the whole world: establish a ceasefire.”
Diplomatic efforts
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer spoke Tuesday evening with Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, about the release of hostages, as well as a “different phase” of the war, more targeted against Hamas leaders, and the deployment of aid to Gaza.
For his part, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, whose country had conducted mediation which allowed a truce at the end of November, spoke with American President Joe Biden.
This truce allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as well as the entry into Gaza of a large volume of humanitarian aid.
The two leaders discussed the necessary efforts to “achieve a permanent ceasefire,” said Qatari diplomacy.
But the efforts of mediators, especially Egyptian and Qatari, have so far failed to achieve a new humanitarian pause.
PHOTO MOHAMMAD ZAATARI, ASSOCIATED PRESS
A Lebanese man looks at the rubble following an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, in Bint Jbeil.
Beyond Gaza, the war has reignited tensions across the Middle East.
In the occupied West Bank, an Israeli raid left six people dead in the Tulkarem sector on Wednesday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Israel is also confronted with groups close to Iran, which supports Hamas, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Ships from the French shipowner CMA-CGM returned to the Red Sea after attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and those from the Danish carrier Maersk will do the same, the two groups announced, as the United States patrols in these waters to protect maritime traffic from Houthi attacks.
On Wednesday, Iran threatened Israel with “direct actions and others carried out by the resistance front”, after the death on Monday in a strike in Syria, which it blames on Israel, of Razi Moussavi, one of its high-ranking officers.
The Israeli army has not confirmed the information.
In southern Lebanon, a Hezbollah fighter and two civilian members of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike, to which the Shiite movement responded on Wednesday by bombing northern Israel.