The Israeli army continued its strikes on Wednesday in the besieged Gaza Strip, where the war against Hamas could last for “many months” despite calls for a ceasefire to deliver crucial humanitarian aid to civilians in the Palestinian territory.
Nearly three months after the start of the war, triggered by a bloody attack launched on October 7 by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israel, the United Nations announced Tuesday evening the appointment of the Dutch Sigrid Kaag to the post of aid coordinator humanitarian and reconstruction in Gaza.
This appointment comes five days after the adoption of a UN Security Council resolution demanding the “large-scale” delivery of humanitarian aid in the narrow strip of land where nearly two million people, i.e. 85% of the population have been displaced.
Despite the resolution, no significant progress on the entry of humanitarian aid has been made in recent days and negotiations around a truce appear to have stalled.
On the ground, the fighting knows no respite. Witnesses reported strikes and ground fighting in Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, but also intense bombardments on the al-Maghazi and al-Boureij refugee camps in the center .
In the north of the Palestinian territory, violent clashes took place at dawn in the neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan, in Gaza City, and in the town of Jabaliya.
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after the attack by commandos infiltrated from Gaza left around 1,140 people dead, most of them civilians, according to official Israeli figures. Around 250 people have been kidnapped, according to Israel, of whom 129 remain detained in Gaza.
Furthermore, 164 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the start of the ground offensive on October 27, according to the latest army figures.
“Get rid of the Palestinians”
In Israeli military retaliatory operations in Gaza, 20,915 people, the majority of them civilians, were killed and 54,918 injured, according to the Health Ministry of Hamas, an organization classified as terrorist by the United States, Israel and Israel. ‘European Union.
On Tuesday, bodies of Palestinians, handed over by Israel, were transported in a truck to a mass grave in Rafah, in the South, where they were buried, according to an AFP journalist on site.
“We received a container with a large number of martyrs. Some were complete bodies, while for others they were human remains,” lamented Marwan al-Hams, head of the health emergency committee in Rafah.
“Netanyahu’s plan is to get rid of the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority,” his president, Mahmoud Abbas, accused Tuesday evening on the Egyptian television channel ON.
“What is happening on Palestinian soil these days goes beyond a catastrophe and a genocide,” he added.
“Our people did not witness such a war, even during the Nakba of 1948,” he said, referring to the “catastrophe” that Palestinians associate with the creation of the Palestinian state. Israel in 1948, after which 760,000 of them were forced into exodus during the first Arab-Israeli war.
Diplomatic efforts
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced earlier this week an “intensification” of strikes on Gaza, where telecommunications were still cut early Wednesday.
And the conflict “will last for many more months,” army chief of staff Herzi Halevi warned on Tuesday, stressing that its objectives “are not easy to achieve.”
While in Israel, the families of the hostages live in anguish, Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer spoke Tuesday evening with Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser of the White House, about the release of hostages, as well as a “different phase” of the war, more targeted against Hamas leaders, and the deployment of aid to Gaza.
For his part, the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, whose country had carried out mediation which allowed a truce at the end of November, spoke overnight with American President Joe Biden.
The two leaders discussed the necessary efforts “to calm the situation and achieve a permanent ceasefire,” Qatari diplomacy said in a statement.
France said on Tuesday it was “gravely concerned” by the intensification of fighting and called “strongly” for “an immediate truce” leading to a ceasefire.
Risk of an extension
At the end of November, a one-week truce allowed the release of 105 hostages against 240 Palestinian prisoners, and the entry into Gaza of a large volume of aid.
But the efforts of mediators, especially Egyptian and Qatari, have so far not made it possible to achieve a new humanitarian pause.
Beyond Gaza, the specter of an extension of the conflict still looms.
In the occupied West Bank, an Israeli raid early Wednesday left six people dead and many injured in the Tulkarem sector, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
In total, more than 300 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed by Israeli soldiers and in some cases settlers since the start of the war.
But Israel is also confronted with groups close to Iran such as Hezbollah in Lebanon or the Houthis in Yemen, with Tehran supporting Hamas.
On Wednesday, a Hezbollah fighter and two civilians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a home in a border town in southern Lebanon.
The day before, exchanges of fire between Hezbollah and Israel injured nine Israeli soldiers. Two fighters from the Shiite movement were also killed.
The United States, which patrols the Red Sea to protect maritime traffic from Houthi attacks, announced on Tuesday that it had destroyed twelve drones and five missiles fired by these rebels who say they are acting in “solidarity” with Hamas.
Attacks attributed to pro-Iranian groups against American troops have also increased in Iraq and Syria. In response, the United States struck three sites used by pro-Iranian groups in Iraq, killing one.
These incidents come just after Tehran accused Israel of killing one of its senior officers, Razi Mousavi, in a strike in Syria, and promised to avenge his death.