Israel and Hamas at war, day 29 | No respite in the Israeli offensive in Gaza

Israel continued its offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Saturday without respite, after rejecting the idea of ​​“humanitarian pauses” demanded by the United States to relieve the population trapped in the besieged Palestinian territory.

The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, after a stop in Tel Aviv, was to meet several Arab leaders in Jordan on Saturday, four weeks after the start of the war triggered by the bloody attack carried out by the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil on October 7.

Israel, which in retaliation relentlessly shells the Gaza Strip and has sworn to “annihilate” Hamas, has also been waging fierce ground battles for more than a week, amid the ruins, against the Islamist movement whose fighters are entrenched in a network of tunnels.

Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, claimed on Saturday that an Israeli bombing had left 15 dead in a UN school where displaced Palestinians are sheltering, in the Jabaliya refugee camp (north).

Several deadly bombings in recent days on this camp, the largest in the territory, on several schools housing displaced people, as well as a strike on Friday on an ambulance have prompted, in vain, multiple calls to spare civilians.

Israeli soldiers, who have “intensified” their operations according to the army, have been surrounding the city of Gaza in the north since Thursday in order to destroy the “center” of Hamas.

The army said on Saturday that soldiers had suffered several attacks in northern Gaza and had killed “dozens of terrorists and destroyed infrastructure” of the movement.

Israeli forces also carried out a “targeted raid” in the south of the territory, where they opened fire on “a terrorist cell emerging from a tunnel”, killing the enemy fighters, according to the army. Still in the south, new strikes targeted the town of Khan Younès on Saturday, according to an AFP journalist.

Hamas, for its part, claimed to have hit an Israeli convoy with mortar fire.

In almost a month, this war has left thousands dead, caused immense destruction and led to the displacement of 1.4 million people, according to the UN, inside the small Palestinian territory, where the humanitarian situation is catastrophic. According to an American official, 350,000 to 400,000 people are still in the north, where most of the fighting is concentrated.

The army, which has been calling on civilians to evacuate the northern Gaza Strip since mid-October, sent messages to the population on Saturday affirming that the main road linking the north to the south would be open for three hours after -noon.

“Heartbreaking images”

On Friday, the Israeli army admitted to having hit an ambulance in front of al-Shifa hospital, the largest in the territory, which it said was transporting Hamas members. The Islamist movement, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, has denied this.

According to the Hamas Health Ministry and the Palestinian Red Crescent, the strike left 15 dead and 60 injured. They claimed the ambulance was part of a convoy transporting injured people to Egypt.

An AFP correspondent saw several bodies and injured people next to a damaged ambulance.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “horrified”. “The images of bodies strewn in the street in front of the hospital are heartbreaking,” he added.

Another strike targeting a school converted in April for displaced people in northern Gaza left 20 dead and dozens injured on Friday, according to the Hamas government.

According to a report published on Saturday by this source, 9,488 people, mainly civilians including 3,900 children, have been killed since October 7 by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip.

In Israel, at least 1,400 people have been killed according to the authorities since the start of the war, the majority of them civilians massacred on the day of the Hamas attack, of a violence and scale unprecedented since the creation of Israel. in 1948.

Hamas also holds 241 hostages, according to the Israeli army.

341 soldiers, according to the army, have been killed since October 7. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that the ground operation was “difficult” and generated “painful losses”.

While the United States is against a ceasefire, it has called for pauses in fighting to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid that has begun entering the Gaza Strip via Egypt, but in insufficient quantity according to the UN.

After a meeting on Friday with the American Secretary of State, Mr. Netanyahu rejected the idea of ​​“a temporary truce” without releasing the hostages.

While the United States is against a ceasefire, it has called for pauses in fighting to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid that has begun entering Gaza via Egypt, but in insufficient quantities. according to the UN.

This 362 square kilometer territory, populated by 2.4 million inhabitants, has been placed under “complete siege” since October 9 by Israel, which has cut off water, electricity and food supplies. The Gaza Strip had already been under an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas took power there in 2007.

Blinken in Türkiye

In a new attempt at appeasement, Antony Blinken met on Saturday in Amman with the Prime Minister of Qatar, a country mediating in the conflict, Mohammed ben Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.

He must also meet with his Jordanian, Egyptian, Saudi and Emirati counterparts, as well as with King Abdullah II of Jordan, whose country, neighboring Israel and the occupied West Bank, recalled its ambassador to Israel as a sign of protest against the Israeli offensive.

The US Secretary of State is due to continue his tour on Sunday in Turkey, another country in the region whose relations with Israel have deteriorated since the start of the war.

Its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced on Saturday that he was breaking all contact with Benjamin Netanyahu and Ankara announced the recall of its ambassador to Israel for consultations.

Tension is also very high in northern Israel, on the border with southern Lebanon where the powerful Shiite movement Hezbollah, allied with Hamas and supported by Iran, is very present.

The Israeli army announced on Saturday that it had launched air raids against Hezbollah targets after attacks by the Lebanese movement, marking a new escalation of tension on the border.

Hezbollah said it attacked five Israeli positions along the border and, in another attack, hit an Israeli military position not far from the town Kyriat Shmona.

On Friday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the United States, which has deployed two naval groups in the Eastern Mediterranean, of being “entirely responsible” for this conflict. He added that stopping the “aggression against Gaza” would prevent regional conflict.

Exchanges of fire on both sides of the border have left 72 dead in southern Lebanon since October 7, according to an AFP count, including 54 Hezbollah fighters. Six soldiers and a civilian were killed on the Israeli side, according to authorities.

The war has also exacerbated tensions in the occupied West Bank, where more than 140 Palestinians have been killed by fire from Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the Palestinian Authority.