New deadly Israeli strikes targeted the south of the Gaza Strip on Thursday, where Israel promised to carry out a “powerful” ground operation in the overcrowded town of Rafah despite increasing international pressure.
After more than four months of war against Hamas across the besieged Palestinian territory, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now wants to destroy the “last bastion” of the Islamist movement in Rafah, which has become the final refuge for hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled the fighting.
While the mediating countries continue their negotiations in Cairo with a view to a truce, calls are increasing across the world regarding the potentially devastating consequences of such an operation.
After in particular the UN and the United States, Israel’s main ally which demands “guarantees” for the safety of civilians, Australia, Canada and New Zealand warned Israel on Thursday against a “catastrophic” operation. » in Rafah.
“There is simply nowhere to go” for civilians stuck against the closed border with Egypt, these three countries stressed.
“Apocalyptic” landscape
“We will fight until complete victory, which implies powerful action in Rafah, after allowing the civilian population to leave the combat zones,” the prime minister declared on Wednesday.
Around 1.4 million people, according to the UN, more than half of Gaza’s population, many of them displaced several times, are now crowding into Rafah, transformed into a gigantic encampment, in fear of the announced offensive.
Rafah is also the main entry point for humanitarian aid from Egypt, controlled by Israel and insufficient to meet the needs of a population threatened by famine and epidemics.
On Thursday, new bombings targeted Khan Younes, a large town a few kilometers north of Rafah, transformed into a field of ruins.
The Hamas Ministry of Health announced a death toll of 87 in 24 hours in the territory, adding that bombings on the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes left one dead and several injured.
Thousands of civilians had taken refuge in this hospital, the largest in the south of the Gaza Strip, besieged by Israeli tanks, where doctors describe a desperate situation.
Most of the displaced have fled in recent days, responding to an evacuation order from the army, only to find themselves “with no place to go”, in an “apocalyptic landscape” where bombings “are part of daily life”, said Thursday Médecins Sans Frontières, a team of which continues to work in the hospital.
” We are scared “
“My husband and my son Mohammad left on Wednesday with thousands of people but I don’t know what happened to them, we lost contact,” a displaced person at Nasser hospital, Jamila Zidane, told AFP. .
“We are afraid,” confides this 43-year-old woman, who remained in the hospital with her six daughters. “For several days, we have had no food and we have been drinking dirty water.”
The army announced Thursday “to continue its targeted raids” in Khan Younes, adding that the air force had carried out “a series of strikes” in support of ground troops across the territory, which reached “underground installations, bases Hamas military and firing points.
The war was triggered by the attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,160 people, mostly civilians, according to a count by the AFP produced from 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 army launched an offensive that left 28,663 dead in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, according to the Hamas health ministry.
The war has also reignited tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire have become daily between the Israeli army and Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and supported by Iran.
On Wednesday, Israel launched strikes in southern Lebanon that left at least ten dead, according to Lebanese sources, in retaliation for rocket fire that killed a female soldier at a military base in northern Israel.
“Existential threat”
Negotiations for a truce including further releases of Hamas hostages and Palestinians held by Israel continue in Cairo until Friday, through the mediating countries Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
According to Washington Postthe United States and a small group of its Arab allies are working on a plan intended to establish a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, which would include a pause in fighting, the release of hostages and a timetable for the eventual establishment of a Palestinian state.
Implementation of this plan would begin with a ceasefire “with an expected duration of at least six weeks,” the American daily said, citing American and Arab officials who hope for an agreement before March 10. , start date of Ramadan.
This perspective was forcefully denounced by two far-right Israeli ministers, for whom “a Palestinian state is an existential threat to the State of Israel”.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still held in Gaza, 29 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7. A week-long truce in November allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinians held by Israel.