Deadly Israeli strikes targeted the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, where the humanitarian situation remains catastrophic, particularly in the town of Rafah, threatened with a ground offensive by Israel, at a time when a new impasse is looming at the UN Security Council regarding a possible ceasefire.
Nearly a million and a half people, according to the UN, are massed in Rafah, located in the south of the Palestinian territory against the closed border with Egypt, whose population has increased sixfold since the start of the war , on October 7, between Israel and Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an upcoming offensive on the overpopulated city, targeted daily by Israeli strikes, in order to defeat the Palestinian Islamist movement in its “last bastion” and free the hostages held in Gaza.
This prospect worries the international community, while hopes of an end to the fighting are increasingly slim. The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismaïl Haniyeh, based in Qatar, however, arrived in Cairo on Tuesday for new discussions on a truce with Egyptian officials.
On Tuesday, the Hamas health ministry announced that bombings on Gaza had killed 103 people in 24 hours.
Strikes notably targeted Khan Younes, a few kilometers north of Rafah, according to an AFP journalist, where Israeli soldiers are tracking down Hamas fighters in the middle of the ruins.
“Humiliated and destroyed”
“We didn’t leave our house. We don’t know where to go,” said Abdullah Al-Qadi, a 67-year-old man who lives in Zaytoun, a neighborhood in Gaza City in the north, also bombed: “We will die in our house and that is better than death. humiliation that our loved ones who have been displaced tell us about. People are humiliated and destroyed.”
Reports from humanitarian organizations are increasingly alarming on the situation in the Gaza Strip, devastated and besieged by Israel, where 2.2 million people are threatened with famine, according to the UN.
Food and drinking water have become “extremely scarce” in Gaza, according to UN agencies which are concerned about an imminent “explosion” in the number of child deaths.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) once again suspended the distribution of its aid on Tuesday in the north of the territory, prey to “chaos and violence”.
Humanitarian aid, still insufficient, enters the Gaza Strip mainly through Rafah via Egypt, but its delivery to the north is made almost impossible by the fighting and destruction.
“Missiles are falling on us, how much longer can a human being cope with them? », asks Ayman Abou Shammali, injured during a strike in Zawayda, in the center of the territory. “People in the north are dying of hunger and we are dying here because of the bombings,” he adds.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented attack launched on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated into southern Israel. More than 1,160 people were killed, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate the Islamist movement, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
The Israeli army launched an offensive that left 29,195 people dead in Gaza, the vast majority of them civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, 30 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7.
“An explosive tank”
“The world must prevent the invasion of Rafah. Rafah has become an explosive reservoir and its invasion would mean thousands of deaths,” Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said on Tuesday.
Prince William also called on Tuesday for “an end to the fighting as quickly as possible” in Gaza, moving away from the reserve usually imposed by the British royal family.
The UN Security Council must decide on Tuesday on a text prepared by Algeria, demanding “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire which must be respected by all parties”.
The text opposes the “forced displacement of the Palestinian civilian population”, while Israel has mentioned an evacuation of civilians before an offensive in Rafah.
The United States, Israel’s ally, threatened to veto this text again, saying it would endanger the delicate diplomatic negotiations for a truce.
They presented an alternative project which evokes a “temporary ceasefire in Gaza as soon as it is feasible” and on the basis of a “formula” including the release of all the hostages.
This project also warns that “a large-scale ground offensive” on Rafah “should not take place under current conditions”.
According to a diplomatic source, this text has no chance of being adopted as is, in particular because of the risk of a Russian veto.
In Israel, families of hostages continue to pressure the government to secure the release of their loved ones.
“We desperately call on decision-makers in Israel and around the world to get involved in negotiations and bring them home immediately,” said Tuesday Ofri Bibas, whose brother Yarden was kidnapped on October 7 with his wife and her two children, one of whom was then less than nine months old.