The Israeli army again bombarded the Gaza Strip on Thursday, relentlessly continuing its offensive against Hamas in the besieged Palestinian territory where “hunger and despair” are worsening, according to the UN, after more than two months and half war.
The war, triggered on October 7 by the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement against Israel, shows no sign of respite despite heavy civilian losses and international calls for a ceasefire.
It also reignited tensions across the Middle East, particularly on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where the Israeli general staff spoke on Thursday of a possible “expansion of the fighting”.
According to an AFP journalist, artillery fire hit several places in the territory during the night, including Khan Younes, the large city in southern Gaza where many civilians who fled the war further north have taken refuge.
The Hamas Health Ministry announced Wednesday that 21,110 people, mostly civilians, including 6,300 women and 8,800 children, had been killed in Gaza since the start of Israeli military operations.
In Israel, the attack on October 7 left around 1,140 dead, most of them civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures. Around 250 people have been kidnapped by Hamas, of whom 129 remain detained in Gaza, according to Israel.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, in power since 2007 in the Gaza Strip. The Jewish state has been shelling from the small territory and launched a ground offensive there on October 27 which has so far cost the lives of 167 soldiers, according to the army.
The army announced Thursday that it was continuing its operations in Khan Younes, which it considers to be an important Hamas stronghold, and in the refugee camps in the center of the territory, which also shelter many displaced people.
In this region, the Hamas Ministry of Health reported deadly strikes overnight in Nousseirat and Deir el-Balah.
The army broadcast images of its soldiers advancing in tunnels dug, it said, by Hamas near the al-Rantissi pediatric hospital, in the west of Gaza City.
“Hungry” residents
The population of Gaza is in “great danger” and “suffers from terrible injuries, acute hunger, and a serious risk of disease,” the World Health Organization, present on the ground, warned on Wednesday.
“Hungry people blocked our convoy in the hope of finding food,” the organization reported, affirming that “hunger and despair” are worsening in the territory, subjected by Israel to a total siege since the 9 october.
The war has caused immense destruction, knocked out most hospitals and forced 1.9 million people, or 85% of the population, from their homes, according to the UN.
Many fled several times, pushed onto the roads by the advance of the fighting and the army’s evacuation orders, without however escaping the incessant bombings.
At the southern tip of the territory, the town of Rafah, bordering Egypt, is home to huge camps where refugees try to protect themselves from the winter cold in makeshift shelters.
In this sector, “the population is almost a million and a half inhabitants,” estimates Nedal Abu Shbeka, owner of a bedding store, where mattresses are in short supply. “There are people in schools, camps and other places,” he told AFP.
“We went to the market to buy a mattress, but we couldn’t find one. We are two families of 16 people. We sleep on nylon, without mattresses or blankets. Even if it’s a used mattress, we’ll sleep on it. The most important thing is to protect the children from the cold,” says a displaced person, Balqees Sulaiman Abu Shehab.
Palestinians who had found refuge in a UN school in the Nousseirat camp fled south once again on Wednesday, loading mattresses, blankets and luggage onto carts or onto the roofs of their cars.
“Even the UN schools are no longer safe”, “first we were moved to Nousseirat, then to Rafah. People don’t know where to go anymore,” said one man, adding: “Our message to the whole world: put in place a ceasefire.”
Humanitarian aid, whose entry into Gaza is controlled by Israel, only arrives in very limited quantities.
A resolution adopted on December 22 by the UN Security Council, demanding the delivery of aid “immediately” and “on a large scale”, remains ineffective.
“Expansion” risk
In addition to the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces increased raids in the occupied West Bank during the night, particularly in Jenin and Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered, according to the official WAFA agency.
A Palestinian was killed at dawn on Thursday during an army incursion into Ramallah, during which exchange offices accused by Israel of transferring money to Hamas were raided, according to the agency.
Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said his army was at “a very high level of preparation for an expansion of fighting in the north,” where exchanges of fire between Israel and Hamas ally Hezbollah and supported by Iran, are daily.
Near the Lebanese border, in the Golan annexed by Israel, a drone crashed during the night, the Israeli army told AFP on Thursday, after a nebula of fighters from pro-Iran armed groups claimed responsibility for an attack on this sector.
Iran on Wednesday threatened Israel with “direct actions and others carried out by the resistance front” after the death on Monday, in a strike in Syria, of one of its senior officers, Razi Moussavi, a loss he attributed to Israel.
After a one-week truce at the end of November, negotiated by Qatar with the support of the United States and Egypt, efforts to achieve a new pause in the fighting remain ineffective.
This truce allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, as well as the entry into Gaza of a large volume of humanitarian aid.
A new call for a ceasefire came Thursday from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. “We demand an end to hostilities and a permanent ceasefire,” he said during a visit to Iraq.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani spoke this week with US President Joe Biden to discuss efforts needed to “achieve a permanent ceasefire”, according to Doha.
But both camps remain intransigent.
Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, in particular, demands an end to the fighting before any negotiations on new releases of hostages. Israel is open to the idea of a truce, but rules out any ceasefire before the “elimination” of the Islamist movement.