Israel and Hamas at war, day 23 | Violent fighting underway, calls to send emergency aid to Gaza multiply

Calls increased on Sunday to allow emergency humanitarian aid to pass into the Gaza Strip, the scene of “violent fighting”, according to Hamas, between its men and the Israeli army.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said on Sunday that the surroundings of one of its hospitals in Gaza had been bombed several times, endangering patients and thousands of civilians who had come to take refuge there.

The Palestinian territory, under siege, has been shelled relentlessly by the Israeli army since October 7, in retaliation for the Hamas attack in Israel, unprecedented in its scale and violence. Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, says more than 8,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed there since the start of the war.

In Israel, more than 1,400 people died, mainly civilians killed on the day of the attack perpetrated by the Palestinian Islamist movement, described as a “terrorist” organization by the United States and the European Union in particular.

Strikes on the Gaza Strip have gradually intensified since Friday evening, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing on Saturday the start of a “second stage of the war” aimed at “destroying the military capabilities and leadership of Hamas.” .

On the ground, the Palestinian Islamist movement reported “violent fighting” on Sunday evening. […] using automatic and anti-tank weapons” in the north of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army has also been operating on the ground since Friday evening.

The Israeli army assured earlier that its air force had struck “Hamas military structures” in the Gaza Strip.

She also reported rocket fire from Palestinian territory towards central and southern Israel.

The United States called on Israel to “take all possible measures at its disposal to distinguish between Hamas – terrorists who are legitimate military targets – and civilians who are not,” according to security adviser President of the White House, Jake Sullivan.

Gaza Hospitals

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry has reported 57 attacks on medical facilities since the start of the war.

“We received firm threats” from Israel to “immediately evacuate al-Quds hospital, because it was going to be bombed,” said hospital director Bachar Mourad.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said the order to evacuate al-Quds hospital was “deeply worrying”. “We reiterate that it is impossible to evacuate hospitals full of patients without putting their lives in danger,” wrote Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on X.

Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals to hide weapons or fighters, which the Palestinian Islamist movement denies.

Little help

Since October 9, Israel has imposed a “total siege” on Gaza, cutting off supplies of water, electricity and food, while the territory was already under an Israeli blockade.

The White House reported on a call from President Joe Biden to Benjamin Netanyahu in which he “stressed the need to immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian aid.” He did the same in an appeal to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi.

Ten humanitarian aid trucks were able to enter on Sunday via the Rafah crossing point with Egypt, bringing to 94 the number of these vehicles arriving since October 21, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

It would take 100 per day in this 360 km territory² where 2.4 million inhabitants are crowded together, deprived of everything.

“Preventing the delivery of aid can constitute a crime,” the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) declared to journalists on Sunday, for whom “Israel must ensure without delay that civilians receive food, medicines” in Gaza.

“In Rafah, I saw stranded trucks full of goods and humanitarian aid, far from the hungry mouths and wounds” of Gaza residents, Khan said.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees has warned of a collapse of “public order” in the wake of the looting of warehouses and food aid distribution centers.

In Rafah (south), Souleimane al-Houli deplores the crowd scenes in front of his bakery: “I’m upset, I can’t give bread to everyone. The bakery only produces 30 batches per hour. It’s way less than what people need.”

Aïcha Ibrahim, 39, claims to have queued in front of two other bakeries “since 5:30 in the morning”.

“Absolute uncertainty”

For Benjamin Netanyahu, the objective of this war is “clear: destroy the military capabilities and leadership of Hamas” and “bring the hostages home”.

On October 7, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated from Gaza onto Israeli soil, where they carried out the deadliest attack since the creation of Israel in 1948. They kidnapped 239 people, including “many foreign workers”, according to Israel.

Relatives of the hostages are increasingly unhappy with the “absolute uncertainty” they face, said Haim Rubinstein, their spokesperson. Four women have been released so far. Hamas estimates the number of these hostages killed in the bombings to be “nearly 50”.

The Israeli Defense Minister on Sunday accused Hamas of “psychological manipulation” over the hostages after the Palestinian movement said it was ready to release them in exchange for Palestinian prisoners incarcerated by Israel.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, an association which defends their rights, some 5,200 Palestinians are incarcerated by Israel.

Tensions in South Lebanon and the West Bank

The international community fears a regional conflagration.

On Sunday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raïssi, whose country supports Hamas, estimated on Sunday that Israel had crossed “the red lines”, which “could” decide other parties “to take action”.

One of the fears of conflagration concerns the border between Israel and Lebanon, which saw an increase in tensions on Sunday.

The powerful Hezbollah movement, an ally of Hamas, said it had shot down an Israeli drone over Israeli territory with a surface-to-air missile and announced the death of one of its fighters.

The Israeli army, for its part, reported new fire coming from Lebanon towards the area of ​​Har Dov and Kiryat Shmona and said it had returned fire towards the origin of the fire.

Not far from the Israeli border, Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah was killed on October 13 in southern Lebanon by a strike, and six other journalists, including two from AFP, were injured.

In an investigation published on Sunday, the organization Reporters Without Borders claims that the journalists were “targeted”.

Without categorically implicating the Israeli army, the organization also indicates that “according to the ballistic analysis carried out by RSF, the area from which the shots came is located to the east of where the group of journalists and their vehicles were targeted, where the border with Israel is located.

Tension is also very high in the occupied West Bank where the situation was already tense before this war. Five Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire on Sunday, according to the Palestinian Authority Health Ministry.

Since October 7, more than 110 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers in the West Bank.

In the predominantly Muslim Russian republic of Dagestan, an airport was closed after being stormed by a crowd hostile to Israel.