Israel on Thursday bombed the crowded town of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where the army is preparing a ground offensive, while complicated talks continue to try to establish a truce in the Palestinian territory.
The bombings left 97 dead in 24 hours, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, across the territory, besieged by Israel since the start of the war against the Islamist movement on October 7 and plunged into a major humanitarian catastrophe.
According to the UN, 2.2 million people, the vast majority of the population, are threatened with famine.
To try to break the deadlock in discussions on a truce, American President Joe Biden’s adviser for the Middle East, Brett McGurk, is expected in Israel on Thursday, after a stop in Cairo where the head of the Hamas political office, Ismaïl Haniyeh also surrendered this week.
The international community is particularly concerned about the fate of nearly a million and a half Palestinians, according to the UN, massed in Rafah after fleeing the fighting and trapped against the closed border with Egypt.
A destroyed mosque
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the Israeli air force carried out around ten strikes there, according to an AFP journalist. Bombings also targeted Khan Younès, a few kilometers further north.
“I was woken up by a huge explosion, like an earthquake. There were flames, smoke, explosions, dust everywhere,” Rami Al-Shaer, a 21-year-old survivor, told Rafah.
“All night there was tank fire and strikes. They destroyed Rafah. The Jews want to remove people from Rafah and are preparing a ground attack,” he added.
In this city, bombings destroyed the al-Faruq mosque, of which only the minaret remained standing in the middle of the ruins.
“At midnight, we were surprised by a call to evacuate because the surrounding area was being targeted,” Mohamad Abu Khosa, a man from Khan Yunis displaced to Rafah, told AFP, adding that the army had “ targeted the mosque with two missiles.
“An inhabited area of half a square kilometer was completely destroyed,” according to another refugee, Ahmad Abu Mousa.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an upcoming ground offensive on Rafah, in order to defeat Hamas in its “last bastion” and free the hostages held in Gaza.
Attack in the West Bank
The war in Gaza has also led to an outbreak of violence in the occupied West Bank, the scene of frequent attacks by Palestinians against Israelis and often deadly raids by the Israeli army.
On Thursday, three Palestinians opened fire with automatic weapons on vehicles near a Jewish settlement near Jerusalem, killing one and wounding eight, according to Israeli police.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented attack launched on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated into southern Israel. More than 1,160 people were killed, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
The Israeli army launched an offensive that left 29,410 dead in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
The humanitarian situation is particularly alarming in northern Gaza, prey to “chaos and violence”, according to the United Nations World Food Program, which suspended the distribution of its aid there on Tuesday.
Subject to the green light from Israel, humanitarian aid, still insufficient, enters Gaza mainly through Rafah via Egypt, but its transport to the north is made almost impossible by the destruction and fighting.
In the south, fighting rages in Khan Younes, where Israeli soldiers are tracking down Hamas fighters.
In this ruined city, the Palestinian Red Crescent reported “multiple attacks” and artillery fire against Al-Amal hospital. The city’s other major hospital, Nasser, was stormed by the army on February 15.
The army announced Thursday that it was continuing its operations in Zaytoun, a district of Gaza City in the north, bombed several times this week, where “around twenty terrorists” were killed on Wednesday. In Khan Younes, the army declared having killed “15 terrorists”.
A six-week truce
Faced with an ever-increasing human toll, new discussions have begun around a plan drawn up by Qatar, the United States and Egypt, the first phase of which provides for a six-week truce, associated with an exchange of hostages for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel and the entry into Gaza of a large quantity of humanitarian aid.
“We want an agreement to be reached […] as quickly as possible,” said US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still held in Gaza, 30 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7.
Their liberation is one of the first objectives of the war stated by Benjamin Netanyahu, who promises to continue his offensive in Gaza as long as Hamas has not been eliminated.
The Islamist movement, for its part, is demanding a ceasefire, an Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, an end to the Israeli blockade in place since 2007 and safe shelter for the hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced by the war.