Israel and Hamas at war, day 245 | Strikes in the Gaza Strip, possible resignation of Benny Gantz

Israel shells the Gaza Strip on Saturday while a senior member of the Israeli war cabinet, Benny Gantz, threatens to resign from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for lack of agreement on an “action plan” for the post-war period in the Palestinian territory.

In the early hours of Saturday, witnesses and AFP teams reported strikes in different sectors of the Gaza Strip, including the center of this micro-territory at the heart of violent strikes in recent days.

One of these strikes, Thursday, on a school of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) left 37 dead according to a local hospital. The Israeli army also claimed responsibility for this strike which, according to it, targeted “a Hamas base”, and claimed on Friday to have killed “17 terrorists” there.

But Hamas accused the Israeli army on the night of Friday to Saturday of “false information”, claiming that three people presented as “dead” by Israel were still “alive”, and that at least two people had been killed elsewhere.

The head of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of having struck “without prior warning” this school which sheltered, according to him, “6,000 people displaced” by the fighting.

The conflict, entering its ninth month, has left tens of thousands dead, ravaged a large part of the Gaza Strip and uprooted most of its 2.4 million inhabitants facing the risk of famine.

Gantz resigns?

Just one week after the new road map announced by US President Joe Biden, diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire appear to be stalling despite discussions this week in Doha, Qatar.

In this context, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken will visit Israel, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan next week, Washington announced.

But by the time the head of American diplomacy returns to the Middle East, the Israeli political scene could have changed.

The former head of the Israeli army converted into a political rival of Benjamin Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, should announce on Saturday evening, according to the Israeli press, his resignation from the Netanyahu government which he had joined after the Hamas attack on the 7th. october.

That day, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Palestinian territory carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count made from official data.

During this attack, 251 people were taken as hostages. After a short truce in November which allowed the release of around a hundred of them, 120 hostages are still being held in Gaza, 41 of whom are dead, according to the Israeli army.

In response to the October 7 attack, the Israeli army launched a deadly offensive in the small coastal territory where Hamas took power in 2007. At least 36,731 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed, according to a latest assessment Friday from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas-led Gaza government.

Mr. Gantz called a press conference Saturday evening in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv.

“List of Shame”

This leader of the National Union party had issued an ultimatum to Mr. Netanyahu on May 18, demanding the adoption of an “action plan” on the post-war in the Gaza Strip, failing which he would be “forced to resign from the government”.

And his party tabled a bill last week to dissolve Parliament, without much chance of succeeding at this stage, because Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud (right) still has a majority of deputies with its allies from the ultra-party parties. Orthodox and far-right.

But Mr. Netanyahu also faces pressure from his far-right allies, including his National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who have threatened to leave his government in the event of a ceasefire agreement with the Hamas.

In the event of the fall of the Netanyahu government and early elections, Mr. Gantz is, however, the favorite to form a coalition in the midst of turmoil, with Israel facing increased international pressure.

Latest episode to date: the country was notified on Friday of its addition to the UN “list of shame” on the rights of children during conflicts in a report expected by the end of June, announced its ambassador Gilad Erdan , saying he was “shocked and disgusted” by Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ decision.

A diplomatic source told AFP that Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the second armed Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip, would also be added to this list.

Unemployment at 79%

Meanwhile, international aid, whose entry into Gaza is controlled by Israel, is only trickling into the territory where the unemployment rate has reached a “staggering level of 79.1%,” according to the International Labor Organization (ILO).

The US military announced Friday that the temporary pier it built on the Gaza coast to deliver humanitarian aid, damaged by a storm in late May, had been reinstalled after repairs.

Trying to flee the fighting and bombings, Palestinians displaced by the war went on Friday to cool off on the beach of Deir el-Balah (center), although it was polluted by sewage.

The sea offers a respite “from insects, heat […] and the smell of corpses,” Mohamed Ghaben, displaced multiple times within the territory since the start of the war in Gaza, told AFP on site.