Israel on Saturday called on the Palestinians to “not delay” in evacuating the north of the Gaza Strip, suggesting a ground offensive, after a week of war, triggered by the unprecedented deadly attack by Hamas, which has already caused thousands of deaths.
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Israel responded to this attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement, in power in the Gaza Strip, by massively bombarding this territory, from where rockets continue to be fired by Hamas into Israeli territory.
AFP journalists near the Israeli town of Sderot, close to the Gaza Strip, saw Israeli airstrikes on northern Gaza on Saturday afternoon, releasing huge black smoke into the sky.
The Hamas attack and the war it unleashed created an unprecedented shockwave in the region and beyond, fueling fears of an extension of the conflict and a humanitarian catastrophe for the population of Gaza. , subjected to a complete siege, deprived of water, electricity or food supplies.
At least 1,300 people, mostly civilians, including at least 130 foreign or dual nationals, have been killed in Israel since the October 7 attack.
AFP
More than 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 724 children, according to local authorities, have died in the Gaza Strip, a small, impoverished and siege territory wedged between Israel and Egypt.
Israel further indicated that it had identified at least 120 people, civilians, soldiers and foreigners, who were kidnapped during the attack by Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
Hundreds of people remain missing, and bodies are still being identified.
Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh on Saturday accused Israel of “war crimes” in Gaza.
The Palestinian movement is for its part regularly accused by Israel of using civilians as human shields, while the prospect of a ground offensive in the heart of a densely populated territory appears terrifying.
According to Hamas, which has threatened execution in the event of strikes on civilians, 22 hostages have already died in Israeli bombings, although this number cannot be verified.
Israel announced the death of two Hamas military leaders: Mourad Abou Mourad, “responsible for a large part of the deadly offensive” of October 7, according to the army, and Ali Qadi, “who directed the inhumane massacre and barbarism of civilians in Israel.
AFP
Pending a ground offensive for which Israel said it was preparing, the army on Friday called on Gazan civilians in the north of the territory – 1.1 million people out of a total of 2.4 million inhabitants – to evacuate to the south, and urged them on Saturday not to “delay”.
There is a “slot from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.,” she said. The army accused Hamas, which rejected the call for evacuations, of trying to block departures.
Since Friday, thousands of residents have been fleeing by all means, their possessions piled up hastily, on trailers, carts, on motorbikes, by car, through the ruins.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for “immediate” humanitarian access to this small strip of land, subject to an Israeli blockade since 2006.
American President Joe Biden has also made “the humanitarian crisis” in Gaza a priority.
Tension is also high on Israel’s northern border, where the Israeli army announced on Saturday that it had killed “several terrorists” who were trying to infiltrate, after striking a target of the Shiite Hezbollah movement in the south of the country in the night. Lebanon, in response to aerial “infiltration” and shooting.
Hezbollah announced that it had targeted Israeli positions in a disputed border area, and two civilians were killed in an Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon, according to a local elected official.
A Reuters video journalist was killed and six other journalists from AFP, Reuters and Al-Jazeera injured in bombings in southern Lebanon on Friday.
The Israeli army said on Saturday that it was “very sorry” for this death, indicating that it was “investigating”, without explicitly recognizing any responsibility. The Lebanese army accused her on Saturday of being responsible for firing “a rocket which targeted a civilian press car”.
In the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967, at least 16 Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli forces during rallies in solidarity with the Gaza Strip.
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.
About 270 people, authorities say, were killed at a music festival.
The heartbreaking funerals follow one another in Israel, like those on Friday of a 52-year-old man, father of three daughters, shot dead in front of his family a week ago, in an attacked kibbutz.
Several hundred people, including families of people kidnapped by Hamas, demonstrated on Saturday in Tel Aviv in front of the Ministry of Defense, some shouting “Bibi in prison” or even “Bibi in exchange for our hostages”, in reference to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Concern is growing for residents of the Gaza Strip, a 362 square kilometer territory subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas took power there.
AFP
Egypt controls its only opening to the world, the Rafah crossing point, which is currently closed.
According to a US official, Israel and Egypt have given the green light to let Americans exit the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing on Saturday.
On the Palestinian side of this border town, dozens of displaced Gazan families have taken over a United Nations school, piling up laundry, mattresses and packages in the classes and the playground, noted an AFP journalist.
Further north, thousands of displaced people are crowded into the courtyard of the Nasser hospital in Khan Younès.
“It’s a disaster, there is nothing to eat, we don’t know where to sleep, we don’t know what to do and where to go,” laments Juma Nasser, a forty-year-old.
AFP
In front of the hospital, sitting on the ground, entire families are left to their own devices, some crying, others showing frightened and shocked faces.
More than 423,000 Palestinians have already left their homes, and 5,540 houses destroyed, according to the UN.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on Saturday for the war against Hamas to be waged with “the greatest respect” for the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
King Abdullah II of Jordan began a European tour on Saturday “to rally an international position to stop the war against Gaza.”
He must travel to France, Great Britain, Germany and Italy.
Anger is also expressed in public opinion in countries in the region, where thousands of people demonstrated on Friday, notably in Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Jordan and Bahrain in support of the Palestinians.
Saudi Arabia, where US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is continuing a regional tour, called for an “immediate ceasefire” after announcing it was suspending discussions on possible normalization with Israel.