what to remember from Tuesday, May 14

The city of Rafah is still threatened by a major offensive. In the small Palestinian territory ravaged by bombings, the civilian population, displaced several times since the start of the war, is once again on the roads trying to find refuge.

Incessant Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip have left dozens dead, Hamas announced on Tuesday May 14, at a time when nearly 450,000 Palestinians had to flee shelled areas of the city of Rafah threatened with an offensive. of scale. In the eighth month of the war triggered on October 7 by an unprecedented attack on Israeli soil by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, the Israelis are commemorating the 76th anniversary of the creation of their state.

New strikes on the Gaza Strip

Before dawn on Tuesday, strikes targeted different sectors of the Gaza Strip, including Rafah, a town in the far south of the territory where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the vast majority of whom are displaced, are crowded together, according to witnesses and AFP correspondents. In the past 24 hours, at least 82 Palestinians have died, bringing the death toll to 35,173, mostly civilians, in the Gaza Strip in just over seven months of war, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Hamas. Civil defense counted at least eight dead in a strike on a building in Nousseirat.

Fierce fighting is taking place in eastern Rafah, located on Israel’s southern border, where the army entered with tanks on May 7. Since then, the Rafah crossing point has remained closed, although it is crucial for convoys transporting aid to a population threatened with famine in Gaza according to the UN. Egypt, neighboring the Gaza Strip, and Israel blamed each other on Tuesday for blocking the entry of aid through Rafah. Humanitarian aid has not reached the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip since May 9, says Qatar.

Negotiations “almost at an impasse”

Israel’s military operation in Rafah “returns” negotiations with Palestinian Hamas, lamented the Prime Minister of Qatar, mediator in discussions for a truce in the Gaza Strip. “Unfortunately, things have not been moving in the right direction, and right now we are almost at a dead end. Of course, what happened in Rafah set us back“, declared Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdelrahmane Al-Thani, during the Qatar Economic Forum.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas. To do this, he is determined to launch a major operation in Rafah where, according to him, the last battalions of the Islamist movement are entrenched. Israel’s first ally, the United States, calls into question the possibility of eliminating the Palestinian movement with such an operation. “We continue to work with Israel on a better way to ensure the defeat of Hamas throughout Gaza, including in Rafah”said White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

Israel announces death of civilian after rocket fired from Lebanon

The Israeli army announced that an Israeli civilian was killed and five soldiers injured in northern Israel by a rocket fired from Lebanon. Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, there have been daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, which claims to support the Palestinian Islamist movement.

“On the northern border, a civilian was killed today by an anti-tank missile fired at Admit”a locality on the border with Lebanon, detailed army spokesperson Daniel Hagari. “During the day, we attacked dozens of Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon”added the spokesperson.

First death of an international UN employee

The UN has denied having informed Israel of the route of its vehicle hit by gunfire which led to the death on Monday of one of its employees, an Indian national, in southern Gaza. The Israeli army claimed to have no “not informed of the vehicle’s route” who according to her was in a “combat zone in progress”.

In Geneva, a spokesperson for the United Nations, Rolando Gomez, affirmed that “the UN informs the Israeli authorities of the movement of all [ses] convoys” as “this is the case in all theaters of operation”. “It was a clearly identified UN vehicle”he added during a regular press briefing. “This is a clear example of the fact that there really is no safe place in Gaza right now.” This is the first death of an international UN employee in the Palestinian territory since the start of the war on October 7.