Israel and Hamas at war, day 93 | No sign of respite in Gaza, Blinken asks Israel to spare civilians

The war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas entered its 4th on Sunday^e months without sign of respite in Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on the Israeli army, which continued its deadly strikes, to spare civilians, warning against an extension of the conflict.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its unprecedented attack on its territory on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the Israeli toll. Around 250 people were kidnapped, including around 100 released during a truce at the end of November.

The Israeli offensive has left 22,835 dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the latest Hamas report. The bombings razed entire neighborhoods there, displaced 85% of the population and caused a catastrophic humanitarian crisis according to the UN.

Starting a tour in the region, his fourth since October 7, Antony Blinken considered it “imperative” that Israel, supported militarily and politically by Washington, do more to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in a press conference in Doha , alongside the Qatari Prime Minister, Mohammed ben Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.

The conflict “could easily metastasize causing even more insecurity and more suffering,” he also warned, affirming that the United States was working to “prevent the conflict from spreading” in the region.

He also described as an “unimaginable tragedy” the death in Gaza in the morning of two Palestinian journalists, Moustafa Thuraya, a freelance videographer also working with AFP, and Hamza Waël Dahdouh of Al Jazeera.

According to the Qatari channel, they were killed by an Israeli strike on their car. Al Jazeera accused the Israeli army of “targeting” Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

One of the victims is the son of the head of the Al Jazeera bureau in the Palestinian territory, Wael Dahdouh, who had already lost his wife and two of his children at the end of October in an Israeli strike.

With the new deaths Sunday, at least 79 journalists and media workers have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Among them, 72 were Palestinian, four Israeli and three Lebanese.

“Never again” on October 7

“The world should see with two eyes, not with one Israeli eye, it should see everything that happens to the Palestinian people […]but the world turns a blind eye to what is happening in the Gaza Strip,” denounced the latter, in tears, after the funeral of his son in Rafah.

Israeli strikes, notably on Rafah, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, and on Khan Younes, the main city in the south of the territory and the new epicenter of the fighting, also killed at least 64 people during the night, according to the Minister of Defense. Hamas Health.

In the occupied West Bank, nine Palestinians were also killed on Sunday. Among them, a three-year-old girl, victim according to the Israeli authorities of shooting by police officers who were reacting to a car-ramming attack at a checkpoint. Seven others were killed in a new Israeli raid in Jenin, a stronghold of Palestinian armed factions in the West Bank, where the violence also caused the death of an Israeli policewoman and a civilian, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.

The army, which is continuing its ground offensive launched on October 27 in Gaza, announced on Saturday that it had “completed the dismantling of Hamas’ military structure in the north”, and was now focusing “in the center and south” of the territory.

Classified as a “terrorist group” by the United States and the European Union, Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, two years after the unilateral withdrawal of Israel which then subjected this territory to a blockade for 16 years and he siege since October 9.

Despite international pressure and calls for a ceasefire, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed his determination on Sunday: “what happened on October 7 will never happen again,” he said. vowing to “continue until total victory.”

At the same time, “negotiations between the Qataris, Israel and Hamas regarding the release of hostages in Gaza are continuing,” a well-informed source told AFP, on the sidelines of Mr. Blinken’s visit to Doha.

“Maximize humanitarian aid”

Mr. Blinken had previously met King Abdullah II of Jordan in Amman.

According to a statement from the Royal Palace, the Hashemite sovereign called on him to put pressure on Israel for an “immediate ceasefire”.

He hammered home “Jordan’s total rejection of the forced displacement of Palestinians”, after statements by Israeli ministers advocating a return of Jewish settlers to Gaza, a position rejected by Washington.

Targeting a World Food Program center in Jordan, the American Secretary of State also stressed that it was “imperative to maximize humanitarian aid to Gaza”.

His tour comes after a resurgence of violence on Saturday on the Israeli-Lebanese border, where since October 7, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and Israeli forces.

The pro-Iranian Shiite movement fired dozens of rockets on Saturday at a military base in northern Israel, an attack presented as its first response to the elimination on Tuesday, attributed to Israel, of Hamas number two Saleh al-Arouri , in Beirut. He then announced the death of five fighters in Israeli strikes.

In Syria and Iraq, attacks on US military bases have also increased, while Houthi rebels in Yemen are carrying out attacks on ships in the Red Sea in support of the Palestinians.