Israel is massing its troops on Sunday for a ground offensive in the bombed north of the Gaza Strip, determined to wipe out the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, responsible for the deadliest attack on its soil on October 7.
WHAT THERE IS TO KNOW
- An Israeli ground offensive is expected on Palestinian territory;
- Israel ordered the evacuation of all civilians from northern Gaza on Friday;
- The humanitarian situation in the enclave deprived of water and electricity is increasingly deteriorating;
- Hamas threatens to execute civilian hostages in response to Israeli raids on Gaza;
- Around 150 people are believed to be detained by Hamas, “including foreigners”;
- The war left nearly 3,600 dead on both sides, according to official reports.
“We are deployed along the Gaza Strip with our ground forces, preparing for the next stage of the operation,” army spokesman Jonathan Cornicus said on Sunday. The army claims to be awaiting a “political decision”.
Israel has urged Gazans living in the north of the territory — around 1.1 million people out of a total population of 2.4 million — to flee to the south as quickly as possible, accusing Hamas, which opposes the evacuation, to prevent civilians from leaving.
Israel claims to be targeting the city of Gaza, in the North, to destroy the center of operations of the Palestinian Islamist movement, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The army announced on Sunday the death in strikes of a third Hamas military leader, responsible according to it for the October 7 attack.
But also in the south, where tens of thousands of Gazans are flocking, lacking everything, the strikes continue, according to residents. In Rafah, at dawn, a doctor’s house “was targeted, the whole family was wiped out,” said a neighbor, Khamis Abu Hilal.
PHOTO SAID KHATIB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli military strike on the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip on October 15.
More than 1,300 people were killed in Israel during the attack by Hamas commandos, mainly civilians, including children, and 126 people kidnapped by Hamas, according to the latest figures provided by the army on Sunday.
She announced that she had found “corpses” of hostages during incursions into the territory. Hamas reported 22 hostages killed in Israeli strikes.
The Israeli response has killed more than 2,300 people, including more than 700 children, in the Gaza Strip, a poor territory controlled by the Islamist organization since 2007, and left more than 9,042 injured, according to local authorities.
In total, more than 423,000 Gazans have had to leave their homes since the strikes began, according to the UN.
“Humanitarian corridors”
On the other side of the Israeli barrier enclosing the Palestinian territory, the inhabitants of Sderot were also evacuated on Sunday by bus towards Eilat, further south, or Jerusalem, to the north, while new rocket fire coming from Gaza was intercepted.
PHOTO AMIR COHEN, REUTERS
People prepare to board a bus to evacuate from the town of Sderot, near the Israel-Gaza border, on October 15.
” It’s hard […] the fear with each alert, you have to leave, it’s better for the children,” says Helen Afteker, 50 years old.
The exodus of Gazans towards the south, the prospect of a ground offensive in an overpopulated territory, now placed under strict siege, are causing criticism and concern within the international community.
Iran warned on Sunday that “no one can guarantee control of the situation” if Israel invades Gaza.
In Riyadh, from where he then left for Egypt, the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, had previously stressed the need to prevent “an extension of the conflict”.
The United States announced on Saturday the dispatch of a second aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean. Their embassy in Israel said it was ready to evacuate American nationals on Monday by boat from the port of Haifa to Cyprus.
Pope Francis called on Sunday for the “urgent” opening of humanitarian corridors for residents of the Gaza Strip, subject to an Israeli blockade for more than 15 years and now deprived of water, electricity and food supplies.
PHOTO MOHAMMED SALEM, REUTERS
Palestinians gather to fetch water, amid a shortage of drinking water, on October 15 in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas equated the “displacement” with the exodus of some 760,000 Palestinians to the creation in 1948 of the State of Israel, with Egypt and Jordan opposing any further dispersal of Palestinians. outside their land.
Tensions on the Israel-Lebanon border
The risk of the conflict spreading to neighboring Lebanon, the south of which is de facto controlled by the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, is fueling fears.
PHOTO HUSSEIN MALLA, ASSOCIATED PRESS
An Israeli artillery shell explodes above Aïta ach-Cha, a Lebanese border village with Israel, in southern Lebanon, on October 15.
One person was killed and others were injured on Sunday in northern Israel by fire from Lebanon, the Israeli army said, adding that it had struck the territory of the neighboring country in retaliation. It closed the border area to civilians.
The army said on Saturday that it had killed “several terrorists” trying to infiltrate at this border. Hamas confirmed the death of three infiltrators on Sunday.
Israel also indicated that it had struck Syria with artillery on Saturday evening after air alerts in the part of the Golan Heights annexed by Israel in 1967.
Brazilian President Lula and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi agreed on the need to allow the entry of emergency humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Egypt controls the only opening into Gaza not under Israeli control, the Rafah crossing, which is currently closed.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
People sit outside the Rafah border crossing with Egypt hoping to get permission to leave Gaza on October 14.
Humanitarian aid arriving from several capitals is piling up there on Sunday, waiting.
“Errors”
According to the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF), the conflict has so far cost the lives of 10 journalists, including seven killed in Gaza and Lebanon.
A Reuters videographer was killed and six journalists from AFP, Reuters and Al-Jazeera injured on Friday in bombings in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli army deplored this death, saying it was “investigating” the responsibilities. The Lebanese army accused her of being responsible for the shooting.
At dawn on October 7, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest, hundreds of Hamas fighters infiltrated Israel in vehicles and by air from Gaza.
They killed more than a thousand civilians, sowing terror under a barrage of rockets during this attack on a scale not seen since the creation of Israel in 1948. Around 270 people, according to the authorities, were shot dead. or burned in their car at a music festival.
The Israeli government’s national security adviser admitted on Saturday “errors” by the intelligence services ahead of the attacks.