Israel announced Thursday that its army would “intensify” its ground operations in Rafah, in the south of the Gaza Strip, despite international warnings against a major offensive in this overpopulated city in the Palestinian territory.
“Additional troops will enter” Rafah and “(military) activity will intensify,” said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, quoted in an army statement the day after his visit to the area. .
International capitals are alarmed by a large-scale ground operation in this locality on the border with Egypt, where hundreds of thousands of civilians, residents and displaced by the fighting in the Gaza Strip are crowded together.
To try to stem the escalation, the king of Bahrain called for an “international conference for peace” in the Middle East by opening the Arab League summit in the capital Manama on Thursday. Hamad bin Issa Al Khalifa also called for “the full recognition of the State of Palestine and its membership in the United Nations”.
In the eighth month of the war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, the army said that five soldiers were killed and seven wounded by two shells fired from an armored unit at a building where they were gathered Wednesday evening in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
According to the Israeli army investigation, the armored personnel had nevertheless been warned of the presence of soldiers in the building. A total of 278 Israeli soldiers have been killed since Israeli troops entered the Palestinian territory on October 27.
Despite the hostilities in the area, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, is making a “pastoral visit” to Gaza City, to deliver a “message of hope, solidarity and support”, announced Thursday the Patriarchy.
“Disagreement” on Rafah
South Africa, with which Egypt has joined forces, must ask the UN’s highest court on Thursday to order Israel to stop its incursion into Rafah, an operation it has described as “genocidal”. . Israel, which rejects these accusations, will respond to them on Friday.
In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent any act of genocide and allow humanitarian aid access to the Gaza Strip, but without requesting a ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that “the humanitarian catastrophe” in Rafah was avoided by Israel, affirming that “nearly half a million people” — 600,000 according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) — had evacuated the fighting zone.
In an interview with the American channel CNBC, he acknowledged a “disagreement” with the United States, Israel’s close ally, over Rafah, where the Israeli army has been carrying out operations since May 7. “But we have to do what we have to do,” he said.
The European Union, for its part, urged Israel to “immediately cease” its operation in Rafah, otherwise it would “strain” their relationship.
On Wednesday, the leader of Hamas, Ismaïl Haniyeh, affirmed that the Palestinian Islamist movement was in Gaza “to last”, while Mr. Netanyahu ruled out any discussion on the post-war period before the annihilation of the movement, considered as an organization terrorist by Israel, the United States and the EU.
A pier for the recovery of aid
Threatened by famine, fleeing bombs, the population, 2.4 million inhabitants, 70% of whom are displaced, finds themselves once again on the roads in search of an illusory refuge.
Deliveries of humanitarian aid, particularly fuel, essential for the functioning of infrastructure, are still blocked at the Rafah border crossing, after the deployment of the Israeli army on the Palestinian side.
Egypt and Israel blame each other for this halt in the delivery of humanitarian materials, also blocked at the main crossing point with Israel, Kerem Shalom.
Aid must, however, begin to transit via a temporary jetty on the Gaza coast that the American army announced Thursday that it had set up. A British ship, which left Cyprus on Wednesday, is due to unload around 100 tonnes of temporary shelters there.
The war was sparked by the Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data. . More than 250 people were kidnapped during the attack and 128 remain captive in Gaza, of whom 36 are believed to have died, according to the army.
The vast offensive launched in response by Israel devastated the Gaza Strip, where 35,272 people were killed, mostly civilians, according to a new report from the Hamas Ministry of Health.
In the north of the occupied West Bank, where the war in Gaza has exacerbated violence, in Tulkarem, three people were killed by the Israeli army, the Palestinian authorities announced Thursday.
In East Jerusalem, an individual tried in vain to attack a border police officer with a knife before being “neutralized,” Israeli police reported on X on Thursday.
New upsurge in violence also on the Israeli-Lebanese border: two people were killed in an Israeli strike Thursday on southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese national information agency (ANI).
Pro-Iranian Hezbollah previously announced it had fired dozens of Katyusha rockets at Israeli military positions in retaliation for nighttime airstrikes that targeted its positions in eastern Lebanon.