Israel and Hamas at war, day 21 | Israel intensifies strikes in Gaza, expands ground operations

The Israeli army announced Friday evening to “expand” its ground operations in the Gaza Strip, the target of unprecedented strikes since the start of the war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas on October 7.

Hamas reported “violent fighting” between its fighters and Israeli forces who, according to the Palestinian Islamist movement, carried out ground incursions in two sectors of the Gaza Strip.

“We are facing Israeli ground incursions in Beit Hanoun (North) and al Boureij (Center). Heavy fighting is underway,” Hamas’ military wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, said in a statement.

The UN, which is calling for a truce, has said it fears an “unprecedented avalanche of suffering” in the small Palestinian territory of 362 km² besieged and deprived of everything, where some 2.4 million inhabitants are crowded together.

The army indicated that it had intensified its strikes “very significantly” in the evening on the Gaza Strip where it intended to “expand” its ground operations.

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.

At the same time, communications and the internet were cut in Gaza, according to the Hamas government, in power in this territory since 2007. AFP journalists explained that they could only communicate in areas where they were receiving the Israeli network.

Faced with Israeli strikes, Hamas called on the world to “act immediately to stop the bombings” by air, sea and land “of Israel, while saying it was “ready” in the event of an Israeli ground offensive. » The Palestinian Islamist movement announced that it had fired “salvos of rockets” at Israel.

On Friday evening, the sky above the Gaza Strip was red and orange, ablaze with explosions and the colors of fires sparked by the strikes, according to live AFP images.

“Avalanche of suffering”

“Without fundamental change, the population of Gaza will suffer an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering,” warned UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

“Many more” people will “soon die” due to the siege imposed by Israel on Gaza since October 9, said in Jerusalem the head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.

“Basic services are collapsing, supplies of medicine, food and water are running out, sewers are starting to overflow into the streets of Gaza,” he described.

The UN, also concerned about possible “war crimes”, is calling for a truce in the fighting, the only option according to it to deliver the much-needed aid to Gaza.

As a prelude to a much-mentioned land offensive, the army has in the last 48 hours carried out two incursions with ground troops supported by planes, targeting Hamas targets, which it accuses of waging war from hospitals and of serve the population as a “human shield”.

Hamas has denied these accusations.

The Hamas Ministry of Health said that 7,326 people, mostly civilians including more than 3,000 children, were killed in Gaza by Israeli bombings carried out in response to the Hamas attack on October 7, the deadliest in the Gaza Strip. history of Israel.

More than 1,400 people have been killed in Israel since October 7, mainly civilians massacred by Hamas that day, according to Israeli authorities.

According to the army, 229 hostages, Israeli, binational or foreign, were taken to Gaza by Hamas, which has since released four women.

Hamas estimated Thursday that “nearly 50” hostages were killed in Israeli bombings.

Crumbs

Israel said it wanted to “annihilate” Hamas after the October 7 attack. That day, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israeli soil from Gaza, spreading terror.

A senior Israeli officer told AFP on Friday that he had found the decapitated corpse of a baby in one of the kibbutzim attacked by Hamas.

A ground offensive in the overpopulated Gaza Strip is worrying the international community and calls for Israel to spare civilians are increasing.

European Union leaders have called for “pauses” in the conflict and the opening of humanitarian corridors to facilitate the delivery of aid. The United States, Israel’s ally, also said it was in favor of “humanitarian pauses.”

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 there, has been placed since October 9 in a state of “total siege” by Israel, which has cut off water and electricity. and food supply.

American strikes

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.

The international community fears a regional conflagration, while Iran, a powerful supporter of Hamas, has issued several warnings to the United States.

The United States said it carried out strikes Thursday against munitions stockpiles 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.