Israel and Hamas at war, day 16 | Israel intensifies strikes, second aid convoy enters Gaza

(Rafah) Israel intensified its bombings on the Gaza Strip overnight from Saturday to Sunday in preparation for a ground invasion, after two weeks of a war triggered by the bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.

Seventeen aid trucks crossed the Egyptian Rafah crossing on Sunday towards the Gaza Strip, bombed and besieged by Israel, the second convoy in two days destined for the Palestinian territory since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas , noted an AFP correspondent.

On Saturday, after the passage of the first convoy of 20 trucks, the UN estimated that its cargo was equivalent to only 4% of Gaza’s daily imports before the start of the war and that at least 100 trucks per day would be needed to the 2.4 million Gazans, half of them children, deprived of everything.

The United States has announced the strengthening of its military assets in the region to prevent a widespread conflagration while tension rises on the border between Israel and Lebanon.

Overnight strikes targeted the southern town of Rafah, close to the border with Egypt, and clouds of smoke rose above the northern town of Gaza, journalists said. of the AFP.

According to the Hamas government, in power in the Gaza Strip, at least 80 people were killed.

“During the night we increased our attacks,” Israeli army spokesman General Daniel Hagari said on Sunday, asserting that “dozens” of Hamas fighters were killed, including an arms manager. movement.

“We will approach the next stage of the war in the best conditions for the army,” he added.

Another source of tension is northern Israel, where exchanges of fire are increasing between the army and pro-Iranian Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and based in southern Lebanon, while residents evacuate the border area on both sides. and other.

These evacuations “will give the Israeli army greater freedom of action in the region,” said General Hagari.

Hezbollah is “dragging Lebanon into a war from which it will not benefit, but in which it risks losing a lot,” another army spokesperson, Jonathan Conricus, warned on Sunday.

“Gaza is complex”

Since the Hamas attack on its territory on October 7, Israel has vowed to “annihilate” the Palestinian movement, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.

“We are going to enter Gaza, we are going to do it for an operational purpose, destroying Hamas infrastructure and terrorists, and we are going to do it in a professional manner,” Israeli Chief of Staff General Herzi said on Saturday. Halevi.

On October 7, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, and on the last day of the Sukkot holiday, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israeli territory from the Gaza Strip, sowing terror in an attack without precedent since. the creation of Israel in 1948.

More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, the majority civilians shot, burned alive or mutilated on the day of the attack, according to Israeli authorities.

In the Gaza Strip, at least 4,651 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have been killed in incessant bombings carried out in retaliation by the Israeli army, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.

The Israeli army has massed tens of thousands of soldiers on the borders of this poor and cramped territory where 2.4 million Palestinians live, as well as on the Lebanese border.

A ground operation in the Gaza Strip promises to be perilous in this overpopulated territory, riddled with death traps and tunnels, facing seasoned Hamas fighters who are holding 212 Israeli or foreign hostages, according to the Israeli army.

“Gaza is complex, Gaza is densely populated, the enemy is preparing a lot of things there, but we are also preparing for him,” warned General Halevi. “And we will keep in mind the photographs and images, as well as the deaths of two weeks ago.”

Six kilometers from the border with Gaza, the kibbutz of Beeri, where Hamas commandos massacred at least 100 people on October 7, is preparing for new burials on Sunday.

“I’m not sure that any of us will be able to assimilate and understand what happened,” says Romy Gold, a 70-year-old former paratrooper, who is preparing to attend the funeral. of five members of the same family.

“We need assurance that this won’t happen again,” he said, “and that’s not the feeling we have.”

“Catastrophic” situation in Gaza

Israel has been calling daily since October 15 for civilians in the northern Gaza Strip to flee to the South for shelter.

But the strikes also continue in the South.

In the town of Khan Younes, 13 people were killed and 60 injured, according to the Hamas government, in a bombing on a building housing a cafe and shops. “I saw burned bodies and dozens of injured people taken away by the doctors,” says Rahi Sharab, 50, who lives opposite the building.

According to the UN, at least 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced since the start of the conflict and the humanitarian situation in the territory is “catastrophic”.

“Time is running out before mortality rates skyrocket due to the outbreak of disease and lack of health care capacity,” five UN agencies warned on Saturday. Cases of chickenpox, scabies and diarrhea due to lack of clean water have been reported.

Subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007, the Gaza Strip has been placed in a state of “complete siege” since October 9 by Israel, which has cut off water, electricity and food supply.

According to the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), these 20 trucks are equivalent to only 4% of Gaza’s daily imports before the start of the war and at least 100 trucks per day would be needed.

On Sunday in Rafah, dozens of people lined up in front of a bakery or waited to fill jerrycans with water, while others searched through the rubble of destroyed houses. In the town of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, the bodies of many children were lying on the bloodied floor of a morgue.

American reinforcement

Faced with “escalations by Iran and its affiliated forces”, American Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the deployment of several anti-missile defense systems “across the region”, without specifying where exactly, and the placement in state of “pre-deployment” of additional military assets, without specifying their number.

“These measures will strengthen regional deterrence efforts, increase the protection of U.S. forces in the region and contribute to the defense of Israel,” Mr. Austin said.

After October 7, the United States already deployed two aircraft carriers and their escort ships to the Eastern Mediterranean to protect Israel.

Since October 7, 90 people, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, have also been killed in the occupied West Bank, by the Israeli army or residents of the settlements.

Israeli strikes on Sunday also knocked out Syria’s two main airports, in Damascus and Aleppo, according to state media citing a military source.