Israel continued its bombing of Gaza on Saturday in the war against Hamas, after the United States vetoed a UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Palestinian territory, where the humanitarian situation is apocalyptic, according to NGOs.
Washington’s blocking of this United Nations Security Council resolution was condemned by the Palestinian Authority and the Islamist movement Hamas, in power since 2007 in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen estimated that a ceasefire “would prevent the collapse of the terrorist organization Hamas”.
The war was sparked by the bloody attack on October 7 by Hamas commandos who infiltrated Israeli territory from Gaza, during which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to Israeli authorities. . Around 240 people were taken hostage and taken to Gaza where 138 are still being held.
Israel has vowed to “annihilate” Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel, in particular.
“Operations in the Gaza Strip continue,” said the Israeli army on Saturday, which has been carrying out a vast ground offensive since October 27 in this cramped and densely populated territory.
In the space of 24 hours, 71 dead and 160 injured arrived at Al-Aqsa hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah, following bombings in the center of the Gaza Strip, said his side the Hamas Ministry of Health.
The latter published a latest overall report showing 17,490 deaths in the Gaza Strip, most of them women and children, since the start of the war.
The Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, claimed responsibility on Saturday for new rocket attacks on southern Israel, from the Gaza Strip.
“Accomplices to the carnage”
After just over two months of war, more than half of the homes have been destroyed or damaged in the Palestinian territory, where 85% of the population has been displaced, according to the UN.
Due to overcrowding and poor sanitary conditions in the shelters of the UN agency dedicated to Palestinian refugees in the south of the territory, certain communicable diseases such as diarrhea, acute respiratory infections and skin infections have sharply increased. .
The American blockade on Friday evening at the UN was also condemned by NGOs, notably Doctors Without Borders, which judges that it makes them “complicit in the carnage in Gaza”.
Residents of a district of Rafah where buildings were destroyed by an Israeli strike expressed their anger on Saturday after this veto: “What resolution has the Security Council ever approved and implemented for our cause and the Palestinian people? “, told AFP one of them, Mohammed al-Khatib.
On Saturday, the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, declared that he held the United States “responsible for the bloodshed” in Gaza.
For its part, Iran warned on Saturday of “the possibility” of “an uncontrollable explosion” in the Middle East, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the UN Security Council as “Israel Protection Council”.
” Anger “
In Gaza, “people are desperate, scared and angry,” lamented UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday, referring to a “nightmare humanitarian context.”
Many of the 1.9 million Gazans who fled the fighting and bombs have headed south, turning Rafah, along the closed border with Egypt, into a vast refugee camp.
Since Friday, the Rafah governorate remains the only area in Gaza where limited aid distributions are taking place. In Khan Yunis governorate, aid distribution has come to a virtual standstill in recent days due to the intensity of hostilities and restrictions on movement along main roads, with the exception of limited fuel deliveries. to major service providers.
At the Nasser hospital in Khan Younès, injured people, including children, are treated on the ground, next to each other, noted an AFP journalist.
In Rafah, residents sift through the rubble after strikes in their neighborhood and salvage whatever they can, such as blankets.
“We fled Gaza City to Khan Yunis, and then Rafah, but where can we go after that? “, Frieze Nusseiri told AFP, at Al Najjar hospital in Rafah.
In the northern Gaza Strip, the Jabaliya camp market has been transformed into a cemetery for victims of Israeli strikes. Graves are hastily dug.
Hostage dead
The toll has also increased in the West Bank, territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, where the army says it has arrested 2,200 people since the start of the war, including 1,800 members of Hamas.
Israel also said on Friday that it had lost 93 soldiers in Gaza since the start of the war, adding that two other soldiers had been injured during a failed attempt to free hostages during the night.
On Saturday, relatives of a 25-year-old Israeli hostage kidnapped on October 7 confirmed his death. Hamas had previously claimed that a hostage had been killed during an Israeli army operation.
An attack on the U.S. embassy in Iraq on Friday heightened fears of a broader regional conflict. On Saturday, the Israeli army said it had responded to “fire” from Lebanon towards the Misgav Am area on Israel’s northern border.
In addition to Gaza, exchanges of fire have increased on Israel’s northern border between the Israeli army and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas supported by Iran, since the start of the war.