Fierce fighting pitted the Israeli army against Hamas fighters on Saturday in the north of the Gaza Strip, where the living conditions of residents are “disastrous” according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
The war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement in Israel on October 7, has not let up across the Palestinian territory, and has raised fears of a conflagration in Lebanon.
On May 7, Israeli troops launched a ground offensive in the southern city of Rafah, which Israel then presented as the last major Hamas stronghold. But fighting has since intensified in several other regions, particularly in the north.
PHOTO EYAD BABA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A man pushes his bicycle past the rubble of shelters destroyed by an Israeli raid in Rafah on June 29.
Since Thursday, the Israeli army has been carrying out an operation in Shujaiya, an eastern district of Gaza City, where it says there are “terrorist infrastructures.”
The Civil Defense reported on Friday “numerous deaths” and the flight of “tens of thousands of civilians”, after a call from the army to evacuate the neighborhood.
“Terrified”
“People were panicking in the streets, they were terrified. […] Everyone was leaving Choujaiya,” says Samah Hajaj, 42 years old. “We don’t know why they [les soldats israéliens, NDLR] entered Shujaiya because they had already destroyed the houses there.”
During the night and on Saturday morning, AFP journalists heard explosions, air strikes and gunfire coming from this area.
The Israeli army said it had eliminated “a large number of terrorists” on Friday and located a weapons depot in a school.
Also in Gaza City, Civil Defense said four bodies and six injured people had been extricated from the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli strike in the al-Sedra sector.
In the centre of the Palestinian territory, where the army said it had eliminated “numerous” fighters, residents were clearing rubble in the Maghazi refugee camp after an overnight strike on a house that hit a medical centre.
“The pharmacy, the ophthalmology department and the emergency department were completely destroyed. There is nothing left but debris,” said Tarek Qandeel, the center’s director.
Further south, five bodies were discovered following a bombing on displaced people’s tents in the al-Mawasi sector, near Rafah, according to doctors.
PHOTO EYAD BABA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A woman carries items recovered following an Israeli raid in Rafah on June 29.
The army is continuing operations in the latter city, which borders Egypt, saying it has eliminated “numerous terrorists” there.
Witnesses reported deaths and injuries among displaced people in the Shakush camp, west of Rafah, after a new incursion by the Israeli army and shooting. A source at the Nasser medical center in Khan Yunis said it had received four corpses from western Rafah.
The Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
32 hospitals damaged
During the attack, 251 people were abducted, 116 of whom are still being held in Gaza, among whom 42 died, according to the army.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organisation, as do the United States and the European Union.
Its offensive on the Gaza Strip has so far left 37,834 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the small, besieged Palestinian territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, more than half of whom have been displaced: water and food are lacking and the health system is on its knees.
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A Palestinian woman stands next to her belongings in a camp for displaced people in Khan Yunis on June 28.
A total of 32 of the 36 hospitals in the Gaza Strip have been damaged since October 7, and 20 of them are now out of service, according to figures released Friday by the World Health Organization (WHO).
UNRWA mission officer Louise Wateridge on Friday described living conditions in the Palestinian territory as “dire”, where humanitarian aid is arriving in dribs and drabs.
Residents are living in ruins of buildings or tents around a gigantic pile of rubbish, she told reporters in Geneva, via video link from the centre of the Gaza Strip.
“No water, no food”
“There is no water, no sanitation, no food,” she added about Khan Younis (south).
Fears that the conflict could spread to Lebanon have recently been heightened by a verbal escalation between Israel and Hamas’ ally Hezbollah.
Since October 7, the two sides have been exchanging fire almost daily in the border area, with deadly violence causing thousands of residents to flee on both sides of the border.
Hezbollah said Friday it had launched several attacks on Israeli military positions near the border, and announced the death of one of its fighters, killed by Israeli fire.
Tehran, its ally, warned Israel on Saturday that the “axis of resistance”, which includes Iran and its regional allies, could mobilize if it launched a “large-scale” offensive in Lebanon.
On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel did not want war with Hezbollah, but warned that his country had “the capacity to take Lebanon back to the Stone Age.”