The Israeli army bombs the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the Israeli government denouncing an “impasse” in negotiations with Hamas the day after the expiration of a truce with the Palestinian Islamist movement which allowed the release of hostages and the delivery of emergency aid.
What there is to know
- The Israeli army says it has targeted more than 400 targets in the Gaza Strip since Friday.
- The Hamas-led government announced Saturday that 240 people had been killed and 650 others injured since the truce in Gaza expired.
- Israeli negotiators left Qatar on Saturday because discussions on a new truce with Hamas were “at an impasse”.
- The first aid trucks since the end of the truce entered the border crossing with Gaza via the Egyptian Rafah terminal.
- The truce between Israel and Hamas allowed the release of 105 hostages and that of 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Believing that the dialogue was “at an impasse”, Israeli negotiators who were continuing discussions in Qatar on a truce with Hamas in Gaza have returned to Israel, the Israeli Prime Minister’s office announced.
The Israeli army had earlier indicated that it had struck “more than 400 targets” in the small Palestinian territory since the resumption of hostilities on Friday morning, including 50 in the region of Khan Younes (South), where the morgue of the main hospital was clogged, according to an AFP correspondent.
PHOTO JOHN MACDOUGALL, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
View of smoke rising above buildings in the Gaza Strip after being hit by Israeli strikes on December 2
The health ministry of Hamas, in power in the besieged Palestinian territory, reported more than 240 dead and 650 injured.
On Saturday morning, the Israeli army sent text messages to residents in several areas, including the northern neighborhoods of Khan Yunis, as well as villages along the border with Israel in the central Gaza Strip, ordering them to “leave immediately.” .
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Residents of the Qatar-funded Hamad Town residential complex in the southern Gaza Strip carry some of their belongings as they flee their homes in Khan Yunis after receiving notification from the Israeli army of a imminent strike on December 2.
In Israel, Passive Defense, responsible for protecting the population, reported more than 40 rocket alerts on Saturday in the center and south of the country, without recording any casualties.
Israel and Hamas blame each other for the end of the truce, which allowed the release of around a hundred hostages in exchange for that of 240 Palestinian prisoners as well as the acceleration of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip .
Hamas said it had “proposed an exchange of prisoners and elderly people” among the hostages, as well as the handover to Israel of the bodies of captives “who died in Israeli bombings”.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Islamist movement of having “violated the agreement” and “fired rockets” towards Israel, with his government promising Hamas “the worst beating”.
Pro-Iran fighters killed
In addition to Gaza, exchanges of fire have resumed on Israel’s northern border between the Israeli army and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas supported by Iran.
Hezbollah, which has claimed responsibility for attacks against Israel, deplored the death of two of its members in Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon, where a civilian was also killed.
Israel carried out airstrikes on Saturday near the Syrian capital Damascus, the Syrian Defense Ministry said.
Four pro-Iran fighters were killed in these Israeli strikes against sites belonging to Lebanese Hezbollah, near Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) told AFP.
The Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, claimed that Israel had killed two of their members who were carrying out an “advisory mission” in Syria, without providing further details.
Questioned on Saturday morning by AFP, the Israeli army did not comment on these strikes.
The war between Israel and Hamas was triggered by an unprecedented attack carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israel on October 7, which left 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, according to authorities.
PHOTO FADI SHANA, REUTERS
People mourn the deaths of Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on December 2.
In retaliation, Israel carried out devastating bombings against the Palestinian territory, where it launched a ground offensive on October 27.
According to the Hamas government, more than 15,000 people, including more than 6,150 under the age of 18, have died in Israeli strikes since October 7.
“If violence resumes at this scale and intensity, we can assume that hundreds more children will be killed and injured every day,” warned UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
” Human being ”
The truce had offered respite to the inhabitants of Gaza and allowed an acceleration of humanitarian aid, but this flow, described as very insufficient by the UN, was interrupted by the resumption of hostilities.
The Palestinian Red Crescent, however, indicated on Saturday that it had “received aid trucks” via the Egyptian Rafah terminal, the border post with Gaza, the first since the expiration of the truce.
PALESTINIAN RED CRESCENT PHOTO VIA REUTERS
Men walk alongside trucks carrying humanitarian aid that entered Gaza through the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in this photo published on December 2.
The needs are immense in the territory already under an Israeli blockade, where more than half of the territory’s housing has been damaged or destroyed, and where 1.7 million people — out of 2.4 million — have been displaced by the war according to the UN.
On Saturday, the NGO Doctors Without Borders (MSF) announced that the al-Awda hospital, one of the few still operational in the north of the Gaza Strip, had been partly hit by a strike on Friday.
Fadel Naïm, chief doctor at the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, told AFP that he received 30 bodies at the morgue on Saturday, including those of seven children.
“The planes bombed our houses: three bombs, three houses destroyed,” Nemr al-Bel, 43, told AFP, saying he counted 10 dead in his family and “13 others still under the rubble”.
Against a backdrop of strikes, the health situation continues to deteriorate in the Gaza Strip, where the World Health Organization (WHO) has recorded 111,000 cases of acute respiratory infection and 36,000 cases of diarrhea in children under of five years among the displaced.
PHOTO MOHAMMED ABED, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A Palestinian carries a child injured during Israeli bombings in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 2.
“When will the world see us as human beings?” My family and I, we are civilians, we have nothing to do with this war,” despairs Marwa Saleh, 47, who arrived in Khan Younes after being displaced from Gaza City.
“Glimpse a chance”
Worried about the resumption of hostilities, families and loved ones of hostages continue to mobilize in Israel to demand the release of theirs after the confirmation Friday evening by the Israeli army of the death of five hostages held in the Gaza Strip.
After the release of 110 hostages since the start of the conflict, including 105 during the truce, mostly women and minors, 136 hostages remain in the hands of Hamas and other groups affiliated with Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities.
On Friday, relatives and supporters of the hostages gathered in a Tel Aviv square, now known as Hostages Square, with Torah scrolls representing the number of hostages remaining in Gaza.
“We were given a chance that people would come out, join us and resume their previous lives,” testified, moved, Ilan Zecharya, uncle of hostage Eden Yerushalmi, aged around twenty.
“From everyone, from our country, we ask for a new system” for the “liberation of everyone”, he implored.