Palestinian medical sources announced 24 deaths in Israeli airstrikes on Saturday in Gaza City, the day after deadly shootings near an office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the south of the besieged Palestinian territory.
As fighting between the Israeli army and the Islamist movement Hamas rages, at least 20 people were killed and several others injured in an air raid on a house in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood, the media said. AFP the spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense, Mahmoud Basal. Four others were killed in a strike in the Shati refugee camp, he said.
Doctor Mahmoud Aliwa, from Al-Ahli Hospital, confirmed that 24 bodies had been transferred to the facility.
The day before, “large caliber” shots near an ICRC office left 22 dead and 45 injured, the organization said, without specifying the origin of the shots.
PHOTO AYMAN AL HASSI, REUTERS
Palestinians search for victims in a building destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza City on June 22.
Around the ICRC, “in the street there were pools of blood, there were bodies scattered on the ground, and an immense feeling of fear among people who were clearly panicked and very desperate, having nowhere to go », Described the head of the ICRC in Rafah, William Schomburg, to journalists on Saturday, via video link with Geneva.
The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, condemned the deadly shootings on Saturday and called for the opening of an “independent investigation”.
The Ministry of Health of the government of Gaza, a territory ruled by Hamas, accused Israel of having “targeted the tents of displaced civilians in Al-Mawasi”, reporting 25 dead and 50 injured.
The coastal area of Al-Mawasi, near Rafah, is home to displaced people driven out by fighting in the rest of the Palestinian territory. It had been declared a “humanitarian zone” by Israel, in theory safe for the displaced.
An Israeli army spokesperson told AFP that “an initial investigation suggests that there is no indication that a strike was carried out” by the army in Al-Mawasi.
On Saturday, exchanges of fire broke out early in the morning between Palestinian fighters and Israeli forces in Gaza City, according to an AFP journalist. In the Zeitoun neighborhood, witnesses saw Israeli helicopters firing on Palestinian fighters.
“No safe place”
PHOTO RABIH DAHER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A man walks past the remains of destroyed tents in the aftermath of a strike in the Al-Mawasi area, northwest of the city of Rafah, on June 22.
Sitting on a concrete block, a Palestinian woman cries on Saturday in front of the body of a loved one wrapped in a white tarpaulin.
Men carry the body of another victim on a stretcher, with walls blackened by flames in the background.
“Recently, army warplanes struck two Hamas military infrastructure sites in the Gaza City area,” the army said in a statement on Saturday.
According to witnesses, at least four residential buildings and neighboring houses were destroyed in the airstrikes, causing several casualties. These strikes took place in the Chati camp and the Daraj Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City.
The war in Gaza was triggered by a bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 on Israel, resulting in the death of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 116 are still being held in Gaza, 41 of whom are dead according to the army.
In response, Israel promised to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union in particular. His army then launched an all-out offensive in Gaza, which has so far left 37,551 dead, mainly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry.
In Tel Aviv on Saturday, tens of thousands of demonstrators brandishing Israeli flags and chanting slogans against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, demanded early elections and the return of hostages held in Gaza.
“I am here because I am afraid for the future of my grandchildren. There will be no future for them if we don’t get rid of this horrible government,” said Shai Erel, a 66-year-old entrepreneur.
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A woman sits next to the remains of a relative for burial, killed the day before during a strike in the Al-Mawasi region on June 22.
Humanitarian disaster
In Gaza, the Israeli offensive has caused a humanitarian disaster: the population, deprived of everything, survives in extremely difficult conditions, surrounded by hermetically closed borders. International aid, essential to meet the immense needs of the population, is having difficulty arriving, deplores the World Health Organization (WHO).
A daily break announced recently by Israel on a southern route, presented as a way to facilitate the entry of aid through the Israeli Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, had “no impact”, according to the WHO. The influx of aid “has been minimal.”
In the small territory where some 2.4 million Palestinians are crowded together, “more than a million people are constantly on the move” in the hope of finding a safe place while “no place is safe,” said the Dr Thanos Gargavanis, head of emergencies at WHO.
Cross-border violence
While negotiations for a ceasefire are stalling, the war has caused an outbreak of violence on the Israeli-Lebanese border, where confrontations are almost daily. Exchanges of fire between the army and Hezbollah, a movement supported by Iran, have intensified recently.
In a televised address, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Wednesday that “no place” in Israel would be spared from his movement’s missiles, after the Israeli army announced the validation of “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon.”
On Friday, the Shiite movement claimed to have carried out attacks against border military targets. In Lebanon, media reported Israeli strikes and bombings against several locations in the south of the country.
Lebanon must not become “another Gaza”, pleaded UN boss Antonio Guterres, highlighting fears of a regional conflagration.