(Rafah) The devastating war saw no respite on Tuesday in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian Hamas, who denounced the arrest warrants requested from the International Criminal Court (ICC) against their leaders for alleged crimes against humanity.
What there is to know
- The ICC has requested arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leaders;
- Gaza death toll rises to 35,647;
- The WHO said Al-Awda Hospital had been “under siege” for two days, with 170 patients and staff stranded there.
At least 85 Palestinians have been killed in the past 24 hours across the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip, bringing the death toll in the Palestinian territory to 35,647, most of them civilians, according to Health Ministry data. of the government of the Palestinian territory led by Hamas.
The war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 against southern Israel, has caused a humanitarian catastrophe with the majority of the approximately 2.4 million residents threatened with famine and three-quarters displaced according to the UN.
“Frankly, we lack words to describe what is happening in Gaza. We described it as a disaster, a nightmare, hell on earth. It’s all that, and worse,” summarized the director of operations for the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), Edem Wosornu, before the UN Security Council.
PHOTO JACK GUEZ, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Smoke rises from the Gaza Strip
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas and launched a large-scale offensive against the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a report by the AFP established from official Israeli data.
Of the 252 people taken as hostages during the attack, 124 are still being held in Gaza, including 37 dead according to the army.
Considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas took power in 2007 in Gaza, a strip of land neighboring southern Israel.
Hospital under siege
In the north of the territory, the operation of two hospitals, located near the Jabalia camp, is threatened by fighting between Israeli soldiers and Hamas.
Al-Awda hospital has been under siege for three days, an official at the establishment, Mohammad Saleh, told AFP, reporting Israeli fire on the hospital buildings and “snipers present in the surrounding area and in adjacent houses.
Rik Peeperkorn, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the Palestinian Territories, reported an “intensification of hostilities” around Adwan Hospital.
In the south of the Gaza Strip, Israel launched ground operations on May 7 in certain sectors of Rafah despite opposition from the international community, including the great American ally, which is worried about more than one million civilians trapped in this city.
PHOTO AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Displaced Palestinians queue for water at a camp west of Deir al-Balah.
The army has ordered mass evacuations from Rafah where it says it wants to destroy the last Hamas battalions, its network of tunnels, and save the hostages.
“Since October 2023, 75% of Gaza’s population, or 1.7 million people, have been forcibly displaced within Gaza, many up to four or five times, in part due to repeated calls to evacuate issued by the Israeli army,” said Edem Wosornu.
“Catastrophic hunger levels”
Shaima Nassel, a mother of seven from Gaza, took refuge in a school in Khan Yunis, where men are trying to make it habitable by removing rubble.
“The first six months of the war I lived in the north. We saw death. We moved from school to school six or seven times, under rockets. We saw rockets killing children in front of us,” she said.
Since Israel took control of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on the Palestinian side on May 7, the delivery of humanitarian aid has virtually come to a standstill, particularly fuel, essential for hospitals and logistics. humanitarian.
According to Mme Wosornu, 1.1 million people in the Palestinian territory face “catastrophic levels of hunger”.
The UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, announced that it would suspend its food distributions in Rafah “due to the lack of supplies and insecurity”.
“Despicable”
In this context, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said Monday that he had requested arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes such as “the act of deliberately starve civilians”, “intentional homicide” and “extermination and/or murder”.
Hamas leaders are also targeted by this request for arrest warrants, for “extermination”, “rape and other forms of sexual violence” and “hostage-taking as a war crime”.
Mr. Netanyahu “rejected with disgust the Hague prosecutor’s comparison between Israel” and Hamas, with his Defense Minister denouncing a “despicable” decision.
Hamas condemned “the attempts of the prosecutor […] to assimilate the victim to the executioner.
Direct from AP on Gaza authorized again
On Monday, US President Joe Biden blasted a “scandalous” approach by the ICC towards Israeli leaders.
For France, the “simultaneous requests” for arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders “must not” put this movement and Israel on the same level.
Furthermore, under pressure from the White House, Israel reversed its decision to interrupt the retransmission by the American press agency AP of its live video from the Gaza Strip.
In the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, the Palestinian Authority announced the death of seven Palestinians killed during an operation in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed groups.