Threats of retaliation from Iran against Israel once again raised tensions in the Middle East on Thursday, prompting calls for restraint at a time when progress towards a truce in the Gaza Strip is awaited.
Israeli bombings left 63 dead in 24 hours, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, in the Palestinian territory besieged by Israel and devastated by more than six months of war.
Under pressure to deliver more aid to civilians in the Gaza Strip threatened by famine, Israel on Wednesday promised new measures to increase food deliveries.
Taking note of the Israeli announcement, the UN Security Council on Thursday called for more to be done to “provide the necessary humanitarian assistance given the scale of the needs in Gaza”.
While the mediating countries await responses from Israel and Hamas to their latest truce proposal, the war in Gaza is causing a new outbreak of fever in the region.
Iran “threatens to launch a major attack against Israel,” US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday, assuring his ally of his “unwavering” support, despite tensions between the two countries around the conduct of the offensive. Israeli against Hamas.
The Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose country, an enemy of Israel, supports Hamas, had indicated that Israel would be “punished” after a deadly attack attributed to it on 1er April in Syria.
This strike destroyed the Iranian consulate in Damascus and left 16 dead, including seven members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic, according to an NGO.
” Terrorist attack “
“If Iran carries out an attack from its territory, Israel will respond and attack Iran,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded in Persian.
“Tehran has never sought to inflame tensions in the region, but the Israeli regime’s terrorist attack […] and the silence of the United States and Great Britain encourages [le premier ministre israélien, Benjamin] Netanyahu to continue the war and expand it in the region,” declared the head of Iranian diplomacy, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in a telephone interview with his British counterpart David Cameron, according to a press release from his ministry.
The White House said Thursday it had “warned” Iran, while Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke by telephone with his Chinese, Turkish and Saudi counterparts, calling on them to pressure Tehran against any attack targeting Israel, according to the State Department.
Russia and Germany called on Thursday for “restraint” to avoid an escalation in the Middle East where tensions have increased between Iran, Israel and their respective allies since the start of the war in Gaza.
Pro-Iranian groups from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen carry out attacks against Israeli and American targets to support Hamas. Israel, for its part, has intensified its strikes in Syria where it has notably targeted pro-Iranian groups, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah, and Iranian military targets.
“We are in the middle of a war in Gaza, which continues at full speed […] but we are also preparing to face challenges in other theaters,” Mr. Netanyahu said on Thursday.
“Panic among the children”
The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from the Gaza Strip carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a report established by the AFP based on official Israeli data.
More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 129 remain detained in Gaza, including 34 who have died, according to Israeli officials.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union. Its army launched an offensive that has so far left 33,545 people dead in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to Hamas’ health ministry.
On Thursday, the Israeli army announced that it had carried out an operation overnight in the center of the Gaza Strip, “in order to eliminate terrorist agents”.
“The situation is disastrous and getting worse, the bombings have not stopped and continue,” Imad Abu Shawish, a 39-year-old man, told AFP in the Nousseirat sector, in the center of the territory.
“We hear the sound of missiles falling near us before exploding, causing panic among the children,” he added.
Mediation efforts have so far failed to reach a compromise. On Thursday, Israel accused Hamas of “turning its back” on a “very reasonable offer.”
The latest proposal put forward by Qatar, the United States and Egypt initially provides for a six-week truce as well as the release of 42 hostages held in Gaza in exchange for 800 to 900 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel, the entry 400 to 500 trucks of humanitarian aid every day in the Gaza Strip and the return home of residents of the north of the territory displaced by the war, according to a Hamas source.
“Clear requirements”
Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh said on Wednesday that the death of three of his sons in an Israeli strike in Gaza would not weaken the Islamist movement, in power in the territory since 2007.
“Our demands are clear and we will not give up on them,” Mr. Haniyeh, based in Doha, told the Qatari channel Al-Jazeera.
Hamas demands, before any agreement, a definitive ceasefire, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, a significant increase in humanitarian aid, a return of the displaced and a “serious” agreement on the exchange of hostages and Palestinian prisoners.
The Islamist movement also wants to have “sufficient time and security” to be able to locate the hostages who “are in different places in the hands of different groups,” Bassem Naïm, one of the members of the Islamist leadership, said in a statement on Thursday. Hamas.