Israel carried out new deadly strikes on Thursday in the Gaza Strip where the army is at war against Palestinian Hamas, while the international community fears the promised response from the Israeli authorities to Iran’s unprecedented weekend attack. last.
The European Union, which called for “the greatest restraint”, decided on Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran, targeting the producers of drones and missiles, devices used in the first direct attack carried out by Tehran, ally of Hamas, on Israeli soil.
“We are on the brink of a war in the Middle East which will cause shock waves in the rest of the world,” warned the head of EU diplomacy Josep Borrell, before a G7 summit in Italy.
At the same time, Israel continues its operation in the Gaza Strip, launched in response to the attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a AFP assessment based on official Israeli data.
More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 129 remain held in Gaza, 34 of whom have died according to Israeli officials.
“Hopes shattered”
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, witnesses reported deadly Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip plunged into a humanitarian catastrophe. In 24 hours, at least 71 additional deaths were recorded, reported the Hamas Ministry of Health, bringing the total toll of the Israeli offensive to 33,970 deaths, mainly civilians.
“The bodies of eight people from the Ayyad family, including five children and two women, were discovered after a strike on their farm in the Al-Salam district” in Rafah (south), according to the same source.
“I woke up to the sound of girls shouting “mommy, mommy” […] I ran and found some kids running out […] there were corpses scattered everywhere,” Palestinian Jamalat Ramidan told AFP after a strike in Rafah, where there are a million and a half people displaced by the war.
Bombings also hit Al-Mawasi, which has become a camp with thousands of tents housing displaced people.
“Our land has been razed, our house destroyed […] and our memories buried under the rubble. Our hopes and dreams have been shattered,” says Shams Majid, 22, one of these displaced people.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also maintaining his plan for a land offensive against Rafah, on the border with Egypt, which he presents as the last major bastion of Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which Israel considers to be an organization terrorist as well as the United States and the EU.
Iranian “messages” to Washington
The Israeli army said Thursday it had struck dozens of “targets” across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including “terrorists, observation posts and military structures.”
The war in the Palestinian territory has exacerbated tensions in the region between Israel and its allies such as the United States on the one hand and Hamas and its supporters such as Iran and Iranian Hezbollah on the other.
Iran said it launched its attack on Israel in response to a strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1er April, attributed to Israel, which killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic.
Israel, which said it foiled the attack carried out with 350 drones and missiles, almost all of which were intercepted by Israeli anti-aircraft defenses with allied countries, repeats that it will not go “unpunished”.
According to the Israeli public broadcaster KanMr. Netanyahu decided not to implement plans for retaliatory strikes after discussions with US President Joe Biden, who is trying to avoid a direct Iran-Israel confrontation.
“There will be a response, but it will be different from what was initially planned,” a senior official told the channel on condition of anonymity. According to the American channel ABC, the Israeli government twice considered strikes against Iran without taking action.
On Thursday, the head of Iranian diplomacy Hossein Ami-Abdollahian indicated for his part that his country had sent several “messages” to Washington to ensure that Iran was “not seeking an expansion of tensions” with Israel.
Iran warns Israel against attack on its nuclear sites
“In the coming days”
The United States, Israel’s steadfast ally, has maintained that it would not participate in an Israeli response.
However, the White House announced on Tuesday new sanctions “in the coming days” against Tehran.
European Council President Charles Michel also announced on Wednesday that the EU had decided to impose new sanctions on Tehran to send a “clear message” after the attack on Israel.
Meeting in Capri, Italy, G7 countries are also expected to call for individual sanctions against individuals involved in Iran’s missile and drone supply chain, according to a source at the Italian Foreign Ministry.
As truce talks in the Gaza Strip stall, the UN, which fears widespread famine in the territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, launched an appeal on Wednesday for donations of 2.8 billion dollars to help Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Benjamin Netanyahu refuted “the allegations of international organizations about a famine in Gaza” and affirmed that Israel was doing “everything possible on the humanitarian issue”.
The Israeli army immediately announced the entry into Gaza of eight trucks carrying flour from the World Food Program via the Israeli port of Ashdod.
In this context, a vote by the UN Security Council at the initiative of Algeria, on the Palestinians’ request to become a full member state of the United Nations, should take place on Thursday or Friday, several indicated. diplomats.
The initiative, however, appears doomed to failure, due to opposition from the United States, which has a right of veto.