The head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, is expected in Israel on Monday evening, after a stop in Saudi Arabia, to try to work towards a de-escalation in Gaza, where the Israeli army is continuing its strikes against Hamas, and to ward off a regional conflagration.
According to the Islamist movement’s Health Ministry, Israeli strikes have left 73 dead and 99 injured in the past 24 hours in central Gaza, where the conflict has entered its fourth month.
The Israeli army announced strikes in Khan Younes, the main city in the south of the besieged territory and the new epicenter of the fighting, killing “ten terrorists preparing to fire rockets at Israel”.
During a stopover in Qatar, the US secretary of state, whose country is Israel’s main supporter, warned that the conflict could “easily metastasize” in the region.
According to American officials, his regional tour, the fourth since the start of the conflict, aims to avoid contagion of the conflict in Lebanon, to press Israel to enter a new military phase less costly in Palestinian lives and to initiate a “difficult” dialogue on post-war.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its unprecedented attack on its territory on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the Israeli toll.
Around 250 people were kidnapped, including around 100 released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a truce at the end of November.
Qatar, which then played a key mediating role, is continuing its efforts to free the hostages still held, said the father of one of them, Ruby Chen, who met with Qatari leaders.
The Israeli offensive left 22,835 dead in Gaza, where Hamas took power in 2007, mainly civilians, according to the latest report from the Islamist movement’s Ministry of Health. The bombings razed entire neighborhoods there, displaced 85% of the population and caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis according to the UN.
” A nightmare ”
“The last three months have been like a quarter of a century,” says Nabil Fathi, a 51-year-old Gaza resident. “I wake up thinking it was just a nightmare, but it’s reality,” he continued, saying 20 members of his family were killed.
Two journalists working for Al Jazeera were killed on Sunday in Rafah, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, by an Israeli strike on their vehicle, according to the Qatari channel. A third journalist on board, Hazem Rajab, was seriously injured.
Moustafa Thuraya – a freelance videographer who also works with AFP and other international media – and Hamza Waël Dahdouh were returning from reporting on the scene of a strike.
The second is the son of the head of the Al Jazeera bureau in the Palestinian territory, Waël Dahdouh, who already lost his wife and two of his children at the end of October in an Israeli strike.
The Israeli army took responsibility for the shooting, telling AFP that it had “hit a terrorist who was piloting a flying device posing a threat to the troops”, and that it was “aware of information according to which, during the strike, two other suspects who were in the same vehicle were also hit.”
These deaths bring to at least 79 the number of journalists and media professionals, mainly Palestinian, killed since October 7, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
International humanitarian organizations also continue to warn of the ongoing health disaster in the small, overpopulated and besieged territory.
In Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, more than 600 patients at al-Aqsa hospital had to leave the premises amid “intensification of hostilities”, according to the World Health Organization. The day before, Doctors Without Borders staff had evacuated the same hospital.
High voltage border
The conflict has also increased violence to a level not seen in nearly twenty years in the West Bank, territory occupied since 1967.
Nine Palestinians were killed there on Sunday, including a three-year-old girl, victim according to Israeli authorities of shooting by police officers who were responding to a car-ramming attack at a checkpoint.
Seven of the other victims were killed in an Israeli raid in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in this territory. The violence there also caused the death of a police officer and an Israeli civilian.
The border between Israel and Lebanon is the other major point of tension. The violence there escalated further after the assassination attributed to Israel, Tuesday in Beirut, of Saleh al-Arouri, number two in Hamas, an organization classified as terrorist by the United States and the European Union.
The Israeli army again fired shots towards southern Lebanon on Monday morning, according to images from AFPTV. During the night, she claimed to have carried out air raids against two Hezbollah sites.
The Lebanese movement, ally of Hamas and pro-Iranian, indicated on Saturday that it had fired 62 rockets at an Israeli military base in response to the assassination of Saleh al-Arouri.
Since October 8, exchanges of fire in the area have left 181 dead in Lebanon, including 135 Hezbollah fighters, according to an AFP count.
In northern Israel, nine soldiers and at least four civilians were killed, according to authorities.