An Israeli armed ground offensive on Rafah would transform this town in the south of the Gaza Strip into a “cemetery”, NGOs warn.
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Israeli strikes continued on the Gaza Strip. The risk of a next offensive on Rafah, an overpopulated town in the south of the Palestinian enclave, worries the international community. This offensive would transform the city into “graveyard”said Tuesday, February 20, the head of the American branch of Doctors Without Borders, warning with other NGOs of the risk of famine there. Nearly a million and a half people, according to the UN, are massed in the city which adjoins the closed border with Egypt and whose population has increased sixfold since the start of the war on October 7, between Israel and Hamas.
A new veto by the United States at the UN on a truce
The United States vetoed a new draft UN Security Council resolution demanding a ceasefire “immediate” in Gaza. This is their third veto since the start of the war between their Israeli ally and Hamas. The draft text, tabled by Algeria, required “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire which must be respected by all parties.” Of the 15 current members of the Security Council, it received 13 votes for, one against (that of the United States) and one abstention (United Kingdom).
Israel’s primary supporter, the United States believes that this resolution would have endangered the delicate diplomatic negotiations on the ground to obtain a truce including a new release of hostages. The country subsequently presented an alternative project to the text, supporting for the first time the use of the word “ceasefire”, but not immediately and under conditions.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN, for his part, castigated a veto “dangerous”, Hamas seeing it as a “green light” to Israel to perpetrate more “massacres”.
UN agencies fear ‘explosion’ in number of child deaths in Gaza
Reports from humanitarian organizations are increasingly alarming on the situation in the Gaza Strip, devastated by fighting between the Israeli army and where, according to the UN, 2.2 million people are threatened with famine. Food and drinking water have become “extremely rare” in the Palestinian territory and almost all young children suffer from infectious diseases, have further alerted UN agencies who are concerned about a “blast” imminent increase in the number of child deaths.
At the same time, the World Food Program announced that it had been forced to suspend food aid in the north of the Gaza Strip due to the situation there. “On Sunday, the convoy was surrounded by crowds of hungry people near the Wadi Gaza checkpoint”, mentioned the UN aid agency. The next day, a convoy “faced total chaos and violence due to the breakdown of civil order”with trucks looted and a driver beaten, the WFP explained.
Medicines reached the hostages
Medicines have reached hostages held since the October 7 terrorist attacks in Israel, announced the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Qatar. In a statement to the country’s official news agency (QNA), Majed Al-Ansari said that Hamas, the ruling organization in the Gaza Strip, confirmed “the receipt of a shipment of medicines and the start of their distribution to the hostages concerned”. As part of an agreement negotiated by Doha and Paris, a “cargo of medicine and humanitarian aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip” entered Palestinian territory “in exchange for the delivery of necessary medicines to the hostages”, said the Qatari official.
This announcement is “a direct result of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s insistence on proof that the drugs reached the hostages”, Benjamin Netanyahu’s office reacted in a press release.
WHO transferred 32 patients from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced that it had transferred 32 critically ill patients, including two children, from the besieged Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, to other facilities in the territory. . In its press release, the WHO is concerned for the other patients and staff still present in this hospital. Some 130 patients, injured or sick, are still there with at least fifteen doctors and nurses. During two missions, carried out on Sunday and Monday, staff also brought a small stock of essential medicines and food to patients and staff.
“The dismantling and deterioration of the Nasser medical complex constitutes a severe blow to the health system” from the Gaza Strip, commented the WHO. In the establishment, he “There is no electricity, no running water and medical waste and garbage create a breeding ground for disease,” continued the organization, which described“indescribable” conditions on site.