The Israeli army bombs the Gaza Strip on Saturday for a second consecutive day since the expiration of a truce with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which allowed the release of hostages and the delivery of emergency aid.
The Israeli army said 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 a AFP correspondent.
The Hamas Health Ministry, in power in this 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.
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. His government promised Hamas “the worst beating”.
Hamas and Hezbollah
On Israel’s northern border, exchanges of fire have simultaneously resumed between the Israeli army and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas.
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.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), an NGO which has a vast network of sources in Syria, claimed that two pro-Hezbollah fighters were killed in these strikes against “Hezbollah sites”.
Questioned by AFP, the Israeli army did not comment on these strikes.
According to the Palestinian Wafa agency, Israeli forces carried out night operations in different sectors of the occupied West Bank, where Hamas also has support.
The war between Israel and Hamas was sparked by an unprecedented attack carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7, which left 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, according to authorities.
In retaliation, Israel carried out devastating bombings against the Palestinian territory and 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.
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.
” 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.
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”.
At the same time, the health situation is deteriorating in the Gaza Strip, with the World Health Organization (WHO) recording 111,000 cases of acute respiratory infection and 36,000 cases of diarrhea in children under the age of five among the displaced. .
“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.
“Life before”
In Israel, families and loved ones of hostages continue to mobilize to demand the release of their loved ones after 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, including children, remain in the hands of Hamas and other groups affiliated with Gaza, according to the authorities Israelis.
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, the uncle of the hostage Eden Yerushalmi, aged around twenty. .
“From everyone, from our country, we ask for a new system” for the “liberation of everyone”, he implored.