Israel carried out new deadly strikes on the Gaza Strip on Sunday, with the toll of Palestinian victims rising since the end of a truce with the Islamist movement Hamas, amid increasingly pressing calls to protect civilians.
The Health Ministry of Hamas, in power in the overpopulated Palestinian territory, has deplored more than 240 deaths and 650 wounded since the resumption of fighting on 1er December after a seven-day truce.
A dawn strike on Sunday killed at least seven people in the Rafah sector, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, according to the Hamas government.
The Israeli army, engaged in a ground offensive since October 27 in the north of the Gaza Strip, has increased air raids in the south of this territory where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been displaced by the conflict started on October 7 by an unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel.
She said on Saturday that she had carried out more than 400 strikes on Gaza in nearly 48 hours, with the Khan Younes region in the south having been particularly targeted. And on Sunday, she tweeted that she had “eliminated five Hamas terrorists” and targeted “terrorist tunnel shafts, command centers and weapons storage locations” of Hamas.
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A building hit by an Israeli strike in Khan Younes on December 3
According to the UN, evacuation orders from the Israeli army to Palestinians before strikes affected a quarter of the Gaza Strip on Saturday. These orders, “without guarantees of security or return”, are “equivalent to a forced transfer of population”, judged the NGO Norwegian Refugee Council.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the October 7 attack which left 1,200 dead, mostly civilians, while some 240 people were kidnapped and taken to Gaza, bordering the south of Israeli territory, according to Israeli authorities.
Israeli retaliatory bombings on Gaza have left “more than 15,200 dead, 70% of them women and children” since the start of the war, according to the Hamas government. They destroyed or damaged more than half of the homes in the territory, according to the UN, whose leader spoke of “a monumental humanitarian catastrophe”.
” The price to pay ”
Sunday morning, at the site of a house targeted by a strike in Khan Younes, men were transporting wounded people who were too weak to walk alone.
PHOTO FATIMA SHBAIR, ASSOCIATED PRESS
Palestinians mourn a loved one killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip at Khan Younes hospital on December 3.
The day before, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another armed group in Gaza, indicated that they had launched a “barrage of rockets” towards several cities in Israel including Tel Aviv.
The army cited 250 rockets fired toward Israel, most of which were intercepted, and said two soldiers were killed Saturday.
“By expanding our military operations, we accomplish two objectives. First, we strike Hamas, we eliminate more terrorists, more commanders, terrorist infrastructure […] and we create the conditions to force [le Hamas] to pay a heavy price: the release of the hostages,” declared Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
According to the Israeli army, 137 hostages are still in the hands of Hamas or affiliated groups.
“There is no other way to win than by continuing our land campaign,” added Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Opposite, the number two of the Hamas political bureau Saleh al-Arouri, declared: “We have said it from the first day: the price to pay for the release of Zionist prisoners will be the release of all of our prisoners , after a ceasefire.”
“Too many” victims
Without calling into question the right of its ally “to defend itself” against Hamas, the United States warned Israel against a growing death toll in Gaza.
“Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the extent of the suffering and the images and videos coming to us from Gaza are devastating,” said US Vice President Kamala Harris from COP28 in Dubai. “Israel must do more to protect innocent civilians. »
The belligerents blame each other for the end of the truce which allowed the release of around a hundred hostages in the hands of Hamas and 240 Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, of having “violated the agreement” by “firing rockets” towards Israel. And Hamas claimed responsibility for an attack in Jerusalem that killed four Israelis.
Hamas accused Israel of having imposed new conditions on the release of hostages including Israeli soldiers.
Then citing the “impasse” in the discussions to renew, the Israeli negotiators left Qatar, the main mediator in the conflict, particularly on the hostage issue.
“Blood on my hands”
On Saturday evening, a crowd carrying portraits of hostages demonstrated in Tel Aviv to protest against the Israeli government and, in particular, against Benjamin Netanyahu.
PHOTO AHMAD GHARABLI, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Demonstration in Tel Aviv, December 2
“He is weakening our country,” said protester Sharon Huderland, “the horrible massacre of October 7 is our price and he has blood on his hands.”
The Israeli coordinator for the hostages, Gal Hirsch, met on Saturday evening with the American special envoy on this issue, Roger Carstens: “efforts to free the hostages” are being made, the Israeli authorities simply commented.
“Go where now?” »
In the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Red Crescent indicated on Saturday that it had received the first “trucks of aid” since Friday, via the Egyptian Rafah terminal.
According to the UN, 880 foreigners and dual nationals were also evacuated via Rafah in Egypt, as well as 13 injured and ten of their relatives.
The needs are immense in the Gaza Strip subject to a “complete siege” by Israel, while 1.8 million people – out of 2.4 million inhabitants – have been displaced by the war according to the UN.
The Khan Younes sector, in the south of Gaza, where some of these displaced people found refuge, was massively targeted by bombings.
The local Nasser hospital had “1,000 patients on Saturday, more than three times its capacity,” the head of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told X, referring to a “terrifying situation.”
Nader Abou Warda, a 26-year-old Palestinian, does not know how he survived the strikes in Khan Yunis.
“The Israelis told us “Gaza City is a war zone”; now it’s Khan Younes, the war zone, where are we going now? In the sea ? »