The United States announced Tuesday that it would continue to parachute humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, despite Hamas’s call to cease these operations after the deaths of 18 Palestinians, including 12 who drowned at sea, while trying to collect food packages.
Despite Monday’s vote on a UN Security Council resolution demanding an “immediate” ceasefire, the war still rages in the Palestinian territory besieged by Israel and threatened with famine.
The Hamas Health Ministry announced Tuesday that 12 people, including children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on the tent of a displaced family in Khan Younes, in the southern Gaza Strip.
The strike hit the al-Mawasi sector, west of Khan Younes, which has become a camp with thousands of tents sheltering displaced people chased by the war from regions further north.
Contacted by AFP, the army indicated that it was verifying this information.
AFP images showed a thick cloud of smoke rising overnight over the nearby town of Rafah and a ball of fire in the sky.
In a sign of a desperate humanitarian situation, the Hamas Ministry of Health announced Tuesday the deaths of 18 people, including 12 drowned at sea while trying to recover parachuted food and six killed in stampedes in the same circumstances.
Hamas called on the countries concerned to cease these operations and requested the opening of land access for humanitarian aid, strictly controlled by Israel.
“Die for a can of tuna”
The aid, very insufficient given the immense needs of the 2.4 million inhabitants, arrives mainly from Egypt via Rafah, and only reaches the north of the territory with great difficulty.
“Aid airdrops are one of the many ways we are using to deliver the aid that Palestinians in Gaza so desperately need and we will continue to do so,” while “working tirelessly to increase the arrival humanitarian assistance by land,” the White House said Tuesday.
The head of German diplomacy, Annalena Baerbock, visiting Israel, pleaded for massively expanding food deliveries to Gaza by facilitating the passage of trucks.
PHOTO MOHAMMED ABED, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Volunteers serve meals in Rafah.
Hamas said it had “warned” the countries involved of the “danger” of these operations, in particular “because part of this aid falls into the sea”.
On the ground, residents watch the parachutes and rush when they land, jostling and even fighting.
“People die for a can of tuna,” said one of them, Mohamad Al-Sabaawi, brandishing the only can of tuna he was able to recover.
Back home in Gaza City, another Palestinian finds his situation miserable.
“We are waiting for aid drops, we are ready to die to get a can of beans, which we then share between 18 people,” he confides.
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count. established from official Israeli data.
According to Israel, around 250 people have been kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, of whom 34 are believed to have died.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union. Its army launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far killed 32,414 people, mostly civilians, according to Hamas’ health ministry.
On Tuesday, Israel confirmed having “eliminated” the number 2 of Hamas’s armed wing, Marwan Issa, in a strike carried out two weeks ago. The death of this man, considered by Israel to be one of the organizers of the October 7 attack, had already been announced by the White House.
Israel furious
On Monday, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling for a ceasefire, by 14 votes in favor and one abstention, that of the United States which had until then blocked three draft resolutions mentioning a “cease -fire “.
Furious with the United States, Israel canceled the visit of an expected delegation to Washington.
The United States has increased pressure in recent weeks on Israel so that it spares civilians and renounces its announced ground offensive against the city of Rafah, where, according to the UN, nearly one and a half million people are massed. Palestinians, the majority displaced.
The American Minister of Defense, Lloyd Austin, on Tuesday judged civilian losses “too high” and humanitarian aid “much too low” in the Gaza Strip, when welcoming his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, to the Pentagon.
Hamas welcomed the call for a ceasefire and accused Israel of causing the “failure” of talks led in Doha through Qatar, Egypt and the United States with a view to a truce accompanied by the release of the hostages.
PHOTO AMIR COHEN, REUTERS
Despite Monday’s vote on a UN Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate” ceasefire, the war still rages in the narrow strip of land controlled by Hamas since 2007.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas had reiterated “extreme demands”.
Qatar said on Tuesday that talks were continuing in Doha.
Three hospitals targeted
While less than a third of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are operational, and only partially, according to the UN, three hospitals, accused by Israel of housing Hamas bases, are targeted by army operations .
An operation began on March 18 around and in al-Chifa hospital in northern Gaza City, the largest in the territory, where the army said it killed 170 Palestinian fighters.
PHOTO ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES, PROVIDED TO REUTERS
An Israeli soldier near al-Chifa hospital, where the Israeli army claims to have found weapons, in Gaza City.
In Khan Younes, soldiers surrounded the Nasser hospital, according to Hamas and witnesses who reported shooting.
About a kilometer away, al-Amal hospital has also been targeted since Sunday. It is now “out of service”, the Palestinian Red Crescent said on Tuesday, after the army evacuated its occupants.
A Lebanese organization linked to the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas announced Wednesday the death of seven people in a nighttime strike in southern Lebanon.
An official from the Jamaa Islamiya group told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press that “seven rescuers” were killed in a strike against an emergency center in Habariyeh, near the border with Israel.