The Israeli army waged fierce fighting against Palestinian Hamas in the Gaza Strip on Sunday and intensified its air raids on the small besieged territory, forcing hundreds of thousands of people into an increasingly small perimeter.
After vetoing a UN resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire, the American ally “urgently” approved the sale to Israel of nearly 14,000 shells equipping the Merkava tanks engaged in the offensive against Hamas.
Despite a toll that continues to rise in Gaza with more than 17,700 deaths, mostly women and children, over the past two months according to Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu affirmed on Saturday evening that the “just war to eliminate” the Palestinian Islamist movement would continue.
The conflict was sparked after an attack of unprecedented scale carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated into Israel from the neighboring Gaza Strip, during which 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to authorities. .
Since then, Israel has bombarded the narrow strip of overpopulated land by land, air and sea, reducing entire neighborhoods to ruins and forcing around 1.9 million Palestinians, or 85% of the inhabitants according to the UN, to flee to areas from the south who are also targeted by the strikes.
Early Sunday, Israeli aircraft carried out “very violent raids” near Khan Younes (south), and on the road to Rafah (south), bordering Egypt, Hamas said. Numerous nighttime strikes targeted Khan Younes, according to an AFP journalist.
On the ground, violent battles pitted soldiers against Palestinian fighters mainly in the Khan Younes region, in Jabaliya (north) and in Gaza City (north), according to both camps.
Palestinian fighters continued to fire rockets towards Israel, but the army claims that the vast majority of these rockets are intercepted by the Israeli anti-missile system.
Israeli flag in Gaza
Images posted on social media on Saturday showed the Israeli flag raised in Palestine Square in the center of Gaza City.
The army said it had “intensified” its operations in the south of the Palestinian territory. “We must increase the pressure” on Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, said Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi.
Faced with an explosive situation which raises fears of an spillover of the conflict, the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres, warned of “a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications” for the Palestinians and the region.
He also deplored the “paralysis” of the UN after the American veto, while Benjamin Netanyahu expressed to President Vladimir Putin his “dissatisfaction” after the Russian vote in favor of a cease-fire.
The main mediator in the conflict, Qatar said efforts were continuing to obtain a new truce and new releases of hostages held in Gaza since the October 7 attack. But “the continuation of the bombing reduces these possibilities”, underlined Prime Minister Mohammed ben Abdelrahmane Al-Thani.
During a week-long truce at the end of November, 105 hostages, including 80 Israelis, were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners. According to the army, 137 hostages are still being held in Gaza out of the approximately 240 kidnapped.
“I prefer to see my children released through negotiations, not military actions, because I am afraid that they will be killed by the army,” Yechi Yehud, father of Arbel and Dolev, told AFP during a a rally Saturday evening in Tel Aviv.
” May God protect us “
With the intensification of ground fighting and airstrikes in Gaza, fears are growing for the civilian population, who are desperately trying to protect themselves.
At the start of its ground offensive launched on October 27, the Israeli army asked the population of northern Gaza to go south. A large part of the 1.9 million displaced people find themselves cornered, especially in Rafah, transformed into a vast refugee camp.
“As more and more people move to smaller and smaller areas, overcrowding, combined with lack of adequate food, water, shelter and sanitation, creates the ideal conditions for spread” diseases, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization.
In their flight towards Rafah, Palestinians express their anguish and fear to AFPTV.
“They told us to head south, but there is bombing here too. We are targeted everywhere we go and we don’t know where to go,” said a displaced person who did not want to give his name. “I haven’t eaten for 10 days and I can’t find water to drink. »
For Mohammed Achour, who fled Khan Younès, “there is no safe place. May God protect us “.
In Gaza City (north), thousands of people found shelter at the al-Chifa hospital, out of service after being evacuated by the Israeli army, according to an AFP journalist. Displaced people have set up makeshift tents in gardens and courtyards.
Drones shot down
The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of preparing the ground for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt, an accusation rejected by the Israeli authorities.
“If we continue on this path […]Gaza will no longer be a land for Palestinians,” he said in the LA Times.
The war has also caused violence to flare up in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied since 1967 by Israel, where more than 260 Palestinians have been killed by fire from Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7, according to the Palestinian Authority.
The West Bank is separated from Gaza by Israeli territory. In 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza after 38 years of occupation. And since 2007, when Hamas took power, it has imposed an air, sea and land blockade on the inhabitants of the territory, before a complete siege on October 9.
On the border with Lebanon, the Israeli army reported two soldiers injured in rocket fire from neighboring southern Lebanon towards northern Israel. The air force responded with raids on Lebanese “Hezbollah terrorist targets”.
In the Red Sea, the French frigate Languedoc shot down two drones during the night coming from regions of Yemen controlled by the Houthi rebels, allies of Hamas, who threaten to disrupt traffic on this strategic sea route.