Israeli bombardments continue in the Gaza Strip

The night from Tuesday to Wednesday was deadly in the Gaza Strip with at least 51 dead, according to Hamas. The Israeli army struck in the north and center of the Palestinian enclave.

Fights on all fronts. The clashes in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah and the Iranian attack on Tuesday October 1 did not stop the conflict in the Gaza Strip. The images circulating on social networks resemble everything we have seen for almost a year now, since the start of this war: the ballet of ambulances in the night, the bodies of injured children covered in dust and the buildings which are reduced to a thousand sheets of concrete and scrap metal.

The Israeli army intervened in three areas overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, and made an incursion into several neighborhoods in eastern Khan Younes for several hours with tanks. Buildings were bombed, causing impressive damage. Several members of an influential family in the city were killed.

Further north, in Gaza City, at least two strikes left 22 victims, according to Palestinian doctors. An orphanage transformed into a center for refugees was targeted and homes were hit. Finally, shots were fired at Gazans trying to cross the militarized corridor that bisects the enclave, located south of the city, which allows people to attempt to access Gaza City. Palestinians succeeded in this passage in April during the first Iranian response. This time, there are at least four victims.

In a press release, the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs indicated that France condemns “firmly” the new Israeli bombings, which notably hit a school and “an orphanage in the north of Gaza” as well as “a house in Khan Younès to the south” of the enclave.

The intensity of strikes had decreased in recent weeks in the Gaza Strip, causing around twenty victims per day at the end of September, according to UN reports. A few days ago, before the United Nations General Assembly, Benjamin Netanyahu said that the Hamas organization had been almost dismantled and that it was, in a way, a residual force. Concretely, an entire division of the Israeli army was withdrawn from operations from the enclave to position itself on the Lebanese border.

But operations during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday indicate that the Israeli army has not looked away from the enclave. On site, the destruction is monumental, there is no longer any real hospital, health or education structure. Communication routes are seriously damaged, agriculture is devastated, society has collapsed and there is no perspective for the future. The Israeli Prime Minister recently spoke of civilian power after the war, without taking into account the Palestinian Authority.