Cut communications, unprecedented bombings, “extensive” ground operations: Israel’s grip on the Gaza Strip tightened considerably this Friday, raising fears of the worst for the fate of its millions of inhabitants.
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The army indicated on Friday that it had intensified its strikes “very significantly” in the evening on the Palestinian enclave, where it intends to “expand” its ground operations.
Balls of fire lit up the sky over Gaza this Friday evening after Israel’s aerial bombardments intensified.
Photo AFP
These strikes, very intense according to AFP images, have reached an unprecedented scale since the start of the war triggered by the bloody attack by Hamas on Israeli soil three weeks ago, indicated Israeli public television Kan.
For its part, Hamas reported in a press release “violent fighting” in the evening in the north of the Gaza Strip.
The Jewish state has not confirmed whether this constitutes the start of the ground invasion for which its army has been preparing for almost three weeks now, with thousands of soldiers and hundreds of armored vehicles deployed on the border of the Palestinian territory. .
“If Netanyahu [premier ministre d’Israël] decided to enter [avec son armée] in Gaza tonight, the resistance is ready,” Izzat al-Rishq, a senior Hamas political bureau official, said Friday.
Radio silence in Gaza
Israel, which has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip for three weeks, carried out strikes on Friday which cut off the telephone and internet networks of two major Palestinian telecommunications operators, according to what the latter said.
AFP journalists explained that they could only communicate in areas where they received the Israeli network.
“We have lost contact with our staff in Gaza, with health facilities, health workers and the rest of our humanitarian partners on the ground,” the Gaza director general posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday. World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Many other NGOs also reported that they could no longer communicate with their teams on the ground.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres.
Archive photo, AFP
“Without fundamental change, the population of Gaza will suffer an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering,” warned the Secretary General of the United Nations (UN), Antonio Guterres.
Ceasefire requested
The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution tabled by Jordan on Friday calling for a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hamas.
The text which received 120 votes for, 14 against and 45 abstentions (including Canada) calls for an “immediate, lasting and sustained humanitarian truce”, for all parties to respect international law and for continued and unhindered aid in the Gaza strip.
Photo AFP
High tensions at the UN
In addition, the resolution calls for the immediate release of all illegally detained civilians, without mentioning Hamas as the group that captured them.
” Shame on you ! » launched the Israeli ambassador to the UN in reaction to the vote which he described as “infamy”.
The Jewish state and the United States denounced the motion, criticizing it for not containing explicit criticism of Hamas.
A few hours earlier, Canada had also introduced an amendment to include harsher language in the text with regard to Hamas, but the proposal was rejected by the Assembly.
– With AFP
Hamas sites destroyed
A ground offensive in the overpopulated Gaza Strip is worrying the international community, and calls for Israel to spare civilians are growing.
European Union leaders on Thursday called for “pauses” in the conflict and the opening of humanitarian corridors to facilitate the delivery of international aid.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on Friday for a “humanitarian truce” to protect civilians, saying that the Israeli response must “better target” “terrorists”.
“The images we see of a population suffering in Gaza, especially children […]it seems absolutely unacceptable to me,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday, for whom there is “legitimate doubt” about Israel’s respect for international law.
Israel said it wanted to “annihilate” Hamas after the October 7 attack. That day, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, and on the last day of the Sukkot holiday, hundreds of fighters from the Islamist movement infiltrated Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip, sowing terror.
According to the Israeli army, 229 hostages, Israeli, binational or foreign, were taken to the Gaza Strip by Hamas, which has since released four women.
Hamas estimated Thursday that “nearly 50” hostages were killed in Israeli bombings.
“Crumbs”
Since October 21, 74 trucks of humanitarian aid have arrived from Egypt in the Gaza Strip, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) on Thursday evening, when at least a hundred are needed per day , according to the UN.
“These few trucks are nothing more than crumbs which will make no difference” for the population, launched Philippe Lazzarini.
UNRWA announced that it had “significantly reduced its operations” due to bombing and lack of fuel, while 12 of the 35 hospitals in the Gaza Strip had to close.
This poor territory, subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas took power, has been placed under “total siege” since October 9 by Israel, which has cut off water and electricity. and food supply.
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on the population of the north of the territory, where the bombings are the most intense, to evacuate to the south. At least 1.4 million Palestinians have fled their homes since the start of the war, according to the UN.
But the strikes also continue to affect the south, where several hundred thousand civilians are massed near the closed Egyptian border.
Archive photo, AFP
According to the UN, however, some 30,000 displaced people have returned to the north of the territory in recent days.
“We return to die in our homes. It will be more dignified,” said Abdallah Ayyad, who after taking refuge in a hospital in Deir el-Balah, returned to Gaza City, with his wife and their five daughters, squeezed into the trailer of a scooter.
American strikes
The international community fears a regional conflagration, while Iran, a powerful supporter of Hamas, has issued several warnings to the United States, Israel’s allies.
The United States carried out strikes Thursday against two facilities used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and “affiliated groups” in eastern Syria.
Tension is also very high in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, where more than a hundred Palestinians have been killed in violence since October 7, as well as on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges There are daily shootings between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, supported by Iran and ally of Hamas.
Several thousand people demonstrated again on Friday in the occupied West Bank and in several Arab countries in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.