At least 24 people were killed by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip on Saturday, emergency services said in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than nine months of war between Israel and Hamas.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, whose attack on Israel on October 7 triggered the war, saw these strikes as a “response” by Israel to the opinion given the day before by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which deemed “unlawful” the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967.
A decision described as “historic” by the Palestinians and “mendacious” by Israel.
On Saturday, the Israeli military claimed to have “eliminated terrorists” in strikes and fighting in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is besieging its roughly 2.4 million residents.
PHOTO EYAD BABA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Smoke rises from a building hit by an Israeli strike in Nusseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, July 20, 2024.
According to emergency services in Gaza, at least 24 people have died in Israeli raids.
A strike hit the Nousseirat camp (center), killing two women and a child, said an official at al-Awda hospital.
In the same hospital, a baby was saved from the womb of his mother, also killed in Nousseirat after a strike.
” Barbarity ”
“Two of my daughters and four members of my family are dead,” exclaimed Manar Abou Sidra, whose house was hit by a strike in Nousseirat. “This is barbarity. We have no links with the organizations [armées]so why target us?
The Civil Defense reported nine deaths in strikes in the city of Gaza (North).
“We were sleeping in our apartments and suddenly we heard a boom! Our apartments were hit, everyone was looking for their children,” said Hassan Ayyad, a resident of Gaza City.
PHOTO BASHAR TALEB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Palestinian children walk past stagnant sewage water as they head to a food distribution point in Deir el-Balah, central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2024.
Al-Awda hospital said it admitted four children injured while playing on the roof of their home after an Israeli drone strike in the central city of Al-Bureij. Some required amputations, the hospital said.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped at the time, 116 are still being held in Gaza, including 42 who died, according to the army.
In response, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union, and launched an air and then ground offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far killed 38,919 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry of the Gaza government, led by the Islamist movement.
Later in the day, further protests against the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and calling for a deal to free the hostages are planned in Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu believes that increasing “military pressure” on Hamas is a way to “advance” an agreement for the release of the hostages.
The war has displaced more than half the population in the small territory, which is threatened by famine and where no place is safe according to the UN.
PHOTO JEHAD ALSHRAFI, ASSOCIATED PRESS ARCHIVES
Palestinians evacuate a body from a site hit by Israeli shelling in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 13, 2024.
Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the territory it had occupied for 38 years. Before laying siege to Gaza on October 9, Israel had been imposing a blockade on the impoverished and overpopulated territory since 2007.
” Not enough ”
As the war rages, Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to Washington and address Congress on Wednesday. He is expected to meet with President Joe Biden if he has recovered from COVID-19.
On Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reaffirmed America’s determination to reach a ceasefire agreement.
But this is “not enough”, it is “essential to ensure that we have a plan” for the post-war in Gaza, “for governance, security, humanitarian aid, reconstruction”, he said.
Washington has reaffirmed its commitment to a two-state solution for the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after the Israeli parliament adopted a resolution opposing the creation of a Palestinian state with authority over the West Bank and Gaza.
On Israel’s northern front in Lebanon, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, announced that it had fired new rockets into northern Israel “in response” to an Israeli strike that injured four civilians, a woman and her three children, in southern Lebanon according to a Lebanese medical source.