The Israeli army announced on Friday evening an “expansion” of its ground operations in the Gaza Strip, the target of unprecedented attacks since the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas began on October 7.
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For its part, the UN, which is calling for a ceasefire, fears an “unprecedented avalanche of suffering” in Gaza, a small besieged territory without anything where around 2.4 million residents are crowded together.
The Israeli army will “expand its ground operations in the Gaza Strip” on Friday evening, its spokesman Daniel Hagari said, while heavy bombardment takes place in Palestinian territory.
Hamas called on the world on Friday evening to “act immediately” to stop these bombings.
The Israeli attacks, according to AFP images, began at 7 p.m. local time and continued for more than an hour later.
AFP
At the same time, communications and the Internet were disrupted, according to the Hamas government, which has been in power in the area since 2007.
AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip said they could only communicate in areas where they could receive the Israeli network.
The bombings “by air, sea and land” were “the most violent since the beginning of the war,” Hamas said, accusing Israel of “preparing massacres.” In response, the Palestinian Islamist movement announced that it had fired “barrels of rockets” at Israel.
“Without fundamental change, the people of Gaza will suffer an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned on Friday.
“Many more” people will “soon die” due to the siege of the Gaza Strip imposed by Israel since October 9, said the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Jerusalem on Friday, Philippe Lazzarini.
The United Nations is also concerned about possible “war crimes” and is calling for a ceasefire. According to them, this is the only way to provide the humanitarian assistance that is essential to the needs of around 2.4 million people in the Gaza Strip.
AFP
The United Nations General Assembly must vote on Friday on a non-binding resolution, already castigated by Israel, calling for this ceasefire on the 21st day of the war.
As announced on Friday evening as a prelude to this ground operation, the previous night the Israeli army carried out an airstrike with ground troops and aircraft against Hamas, which it accuses of waging war from hospitals and using the population as a “human shield”. abuse.
Hamas immediately denied these statements in a statement.
Gaza urgently needs “significant and continuous” humanitarian assistance, said Philippe Lazzarini. “Basic services are collapsing, supplies of medicine, food and water are running out, sewers are starting to overflow the streets of Gaza,” he described.
AFP
Hamas’ health ministry said 7,326 people, mostly civilians, including more than 3,000 children, were killed in the area by bombings carried out by Israel in response to the deadliest attack in its history.
According to Israeli authorities, more than 1,400 people were killed on the Israeli side on October 7, mostly civilians massacred by Hamas that day.
Hamas sites destroyed
A ground offensive in the overpopulated Gaza Strip is worrying the international community and calls for Israel to spare civilians are growing louder.
European Union leaders called on Thursday for a “pause” in the conflict and the opening of humanitarian corridors to make it easier to deliver international aid.
French President Emmanuel Macron called on Friday for a “humanitarian ceasefire” to protect civilians and said Israel’s response must “better target terrorists.”
“The images that we see of a population suffering in Gaza, and especially of children (…), seem to me absolutely unacceptable,” said Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday, for whom there were “legitimate doubts” about respect for international law through Israel.
Israel said it wanted to “destroy” Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack. On that day, in the middle of Shabbat, the weekly Jewish rest period, and the last day of the Sukkot holiday, hundreds of fighters from the Islamist movement invaded Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip and sowed terror.
According to the Israeli army, 229 Israeli, binational or foreign hostages were taken to the Gaza Strip by Hamas, which has now released four women.
Hamas estimated Thursday that “nearly 50” hostages were killed in Israeli bombings.
“crumbs”
Since October 21, 74 trucks carrying humanitarian aid from Egypt have arrived in the Gaza Strip, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) on Thursday evening, with at least a hundred needed per day, according to the UN.
“These few trucks are nothing more than crumbs that make no difference to the population,” explained Philippe Lazzarini.
UNRWA said it had “significantly reduced its operations” due to bombing and fuel shortages, while 12 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals were forced to close.
This poor area, which has been under an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas came to power, has been under a “total siege” since October 9 by Israel, which has cut off water, electricity and food supplies.
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on the population in the north of the territory, where the bombing is most intense, to evacuate to the south. According to the United Nations, at least 1.4 million Palestinians have fled their homeland since the war began.
But the attacks also continue to have an impact in the south, where several hundred thousand civilians gather near the closed Egyptian border.
AFP
However, around 30,000 displaced people have returned to the north of the territory in recent days, according to the United Nations.
“We return to die in our homes. It will be more dignified,” said Abdallah Ayyad, who returned to Gaza City with his wife and their five daughters crammed into the trailer of a scooter after seeking refuge in a hospital in Deir el-Balah.
American attacks
The international community fears a regional conflagration, while Iran, a strong backer of Hamas, has issued several warnings to the United States, Israel’s ally.
The United States carried out strikes on Thursday against two facilities used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and “affiliated groups” in eastern Syria.
Tensions are also high in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, where more than a hundred Palestinians have been violently killed since October 7, as well as on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where shootings occur daily Army and Hezbollah, supported by Iran and Hamas allies.
Several thousand people demonstrated again on Friday in the occupied West Bank and in several Arab countries in support of Palestinians in Gaza.