Israel is massing its troops on Sunday for a ground offensive in the bombed north of the Gaza Strip, determined to annihilate Hamas on the ninth day of the war triggered by an attack by this Palestinian Islamist movement, the deadliest ever committed on its soil.
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;
- One million inhabitants of this Palestinian territory have been displaced since the start of the conflict;
- The humanitarian situation in the enclave deprived of water and electricity is increasingly deteriorating;
- Around 150 people are believed to be detained by Hamas, “including foreigners”;
- The war left nearly 3,850 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 announced that it had resumed water distribution in the south of the Gaza Strip, following information to this effect from Washington, after seven days of cutoff ordered in retaliation for the Hamas attack on Israeli soil.
“Decision to distribute water in southern Gaza, approved by Prime Minister [Benyamin] Netanyahu and the president [américain Joe] Biden will push the civilian population towards the south of the Strip,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
The ground offensive that the Israeli army seems to be preparing “could lead to a genocide of unprecedented proportions,” the heads of the Arab League and the African Union Commission warned in Cairo on Sunday.
Ahmed Aboul Gheit and Moussa Faki also call on “the United Nations and the international community to stop a catastrophe”.
REUTERS PHOTO
Corpses are kept in ice cream trucks, while hospital morgues are crowded.
Gaza doctors warned on Sunday that thousands of people could die as hospitals full of wounded desperately lacked fuel for their generators and basic supplies. Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave are struggling to find food, clean water and a place to shelter.
Gaza’s hospitals are expected to run out of fuel within two days, putting the lives of thousands of patients at risk, according to the UN. Gaza’s only power plant was shut down, due to lack of fuel, after Israel completely sealed off the 40 kilometers of border along the territory following the Hamas attack.
PHOTO MOHAMMED AL-MASRI, REUTERS
Bodies were placed in a tent at Shifa hospital.
Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the territory’s largest, said it would bury 100 bodies in a mass grave after its morgue overflowed, with relatives unable to bury their loved ones. Tens of thousands of people in search of safety gathered on the hospital grounds.
One million inhabitants of this Palestinian territory, which has 2.4 million, have been displaced since the start of the conflict and Israeli strikes, the UN announced on Sunday.
And Israel continues to urge Gazans living in the north of the territory to flee to the south as quickly as possible, accusing Hamas, which opposes this evacuation, of preventing civilians from leaving.
Israel says it is targeting the northern city of Gaza 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 displaced people are flocking by the tens of thousands, 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.
Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed 2,450 people, according to a latest report released Sunday by Hamas’ Palestinian Health Ministry.
According to this source, 9,200 people were also injured in strikes carried out in retaliation for Hamas’ unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7. A previous report reported 2,329 deaths, including more than 700 children.
“More than 1,400 people were killed, more than 120 Israelis were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists,” declared Tal Heinrich, spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu, during a press briefing. The previous report showed more than 1,300 dead in the unprecedented attack which sparked a war between Israel and Hamas. Hamas reported 22 hostages killed in Israeli strikes.
“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 and the expected 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 and the prospect of a widening of the conflict” if Israel invades Gaza.
The White House indicated on Sunday that it feared an “escalation” and possible involvement by Iran.
American diplomacy is on deck: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is due to return to Israel on Monday for a second visit in a week, after a tour of six Arab countries.
In Riyadh, he stressed on Sunday morning the need to prevent “an extension of the conflict”.
The United States has dispatched a second aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean and its 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 likened the ongoing “displacement” to 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 from their lands.
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.
At the Rafah border crossing, between Egypt and Gaza, humanitarian aid flows from several capitals, but does not get through.
PHOTO IBRAHEEM ABU MUSTAFA, REUTERS
People sit outside the Rafah border crossing with Egypt hoping to get permission to leave Gaza on October 14.
This only passage between Gaza and the outside world which is not under Israeli control remains closed, bombarded several times by Israeli fighters.
And the foreigners or dual nationals who flock there cannot leave, like Ibrahim al-Qarnaoui, a 77-year-old Swiss-Palestinian, surprised by the conflict while on vacation with his family. If he gets stuck, he will return to “live or die” in the family home, he says.