The International Court of Justice (ICJ) on Thursday ordered Israel to provide “urgent humanitarian aid” to the besieged Gaza Strip, where fighting pits the Israeli army and Hamas in the area of several hospitals.
In addition to the very heavy human toll and enormous destruction, the war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement in Israel on October 7, has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the cramped Palestinian territory, where the majority of the 2.4 million people The inhabitants are threatened with famine, according to the UN.
Israel must “promptly ensure” the “unrestricted and large-scale provision by all interested parties of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” in Gaza, the ICJ said. based in The Hague.
Seized by South Africa, the ICJ called on Israel in January to prevent any possible act of “genocide” in the Palestinian territory, Israel deeming such accusations “scandalous”.
Early Thursday, the Hamas health ministry reported at least 66 deaths in the Gaza Strip overnight, including in Israeli airstrikes.
This toll brings to 32,552 the number of people killed in the Gaza Strip, mainly women and children, since the start of Israeli retaliation against Hamas, according to the ministry.
The Israeli army, which accuses Hamas fighters of hiding in hospitals, continues its operations in the al-Shifa hospital complex in the northern Gaza City, saying it has “eliminated around 200 terrorists” in the area since on March 18.
Israeli troops “evacuated civilians, patients and medical teams to alternative medical facilities,” assures the army.
” Eyes blinded “
“Israeli forces forced men to strip down to their underwear. […] I saw others blindfolded who had to follow a tank in the middle of explosions,” Karam Ayman Hathat, a 57-year-old Palestinian who lives in a building about a hundred meters from the tank, told AFP. ‘hospital.
In Khan Younes, in the south of the Gaza Strip, soldiers are carrying out operations in the area of Nasser and al-Amal hospitals, approximately one kilometer apart.
The Israeli army said Thursday that it had “eliminated dozens of terrorists in the al-Amal area,” adding that its troops “found explosive devices and mortar shells.”
Ghazi Agha, 60, was in a tent in the Nasser hospital complex when the army asked the people there to evacuate him.
“They called us over a loudspeaker: ‘get out or we’ll bomb the buildings.’ I’ve dated dozens of people. […] We heard explosions and gunfire all the time,” he said.
On October 7, the Hamas attack in Israel resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count established from official Israeli data. According to Israel, around 250 people have been kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, 34 of whom have died.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas — which it considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States, Canada and the European Union — and launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip where the Palestinian movement took power in 2007.
Israel-US meeting on Rafah
After the cities of Gaza and Khan Younes, Israel wants to launch a ground offensive in Rafah, at the southern tip of the Palestinian territory, which it considers to be the last great bastion of Hamas and where 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded together, vast majority displaced by hostilities.
The United States, Israel’s main ally, fears the human toll of such an operation and prefers other options.
They had requested the sending of an Israeli delegation to Washington to discuss this project, but Israel canceled the visit after the abstention of the United States which allowed the recent adoption of a resolution at the UN calling for a “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
On Wednesday, however, a senior US official said Israel had indicated it would like to find “a new date to hold the meeting” on Rafah.
At the same time, Qatar – which plays the role of mediator with Egypt and the United States – this week ensured the continuation of indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas aimed at securing a truce of several weeks in the fighting coupled with a exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Lack of water
While humanitarian aid by land, strictly controlled by Israel, arrives in trickles, several countries parachute supplies daily, especially in the north of the Gaza Strip where the situation is particularly desperate.
“Food aid is usually dropped when people are isolated. […] Here, the help you need is barely a few kilometers away: you have to use the roads! » declared James Elder, spokesperson for Unicef, from Rafah.
Hamas called on Tuesday for an end to these airdrops after the death of 18 Palestinians, including 12 drowned at sea, while trying to recover food packages.
On Thursday, on a street in this city, Palestinians, including many children, were lining up to fill their containers with drinking water.
” There is no water [douce] in the school,” transformed into a shelter, “that’s why we come here to stock up on water,” explains Ali al-Samouni, a displaced person in his fifties.
“We walk for an hour [pour aller chercher de l’eau]. Sometimes we come back empty-handed,” laments Maram Abou Amra, a displaced person from Khan Younès.
The war in Gaza has repercussions on the Israeli-Lebanese border where deadly exchanges of fire have pitted Israel against Lebanese Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, since October 8.
A return to calm must be “the highest priority” for both Israel and Lebanon, a White House spokesperson said Thursday, the day after the death of a dozen civilians in exchanges of fire . The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) also called on Thursday for an “immediate” de-escalation at the border.