Israel carried out heavy bombardments on Monday in the besieged Gaza Strip, where the war has claimed nearly 10,000 lives in nearly a month, according to Hamas, as fierce ground fighting rages despite urgent calls for a humanitarian ceasefire.
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According to the Gaza Strip’s ruling Hamas government, more than 200 people were killed in the overnight attacks in the north of the Palestinian territory and in Gaza City.
The Israeli army on Monday morning again called on civilians to leave the north of the Gaza Strip, which has been relentlessly bombed in retaliation for the Palestinian Islamist movement’s bloody attack on Israel on October 7.
Parallel to its campaign of attacks, Israel has been waging bitter ground battles since October 27 against Hamas, which it has vowed to “annihilate.”
The army announced Monday morning that it had carried out “significant attacks” in the territory and said soldiers’ deployment options would be “less restricted” as civilians were evacuated to the south.
“We will then be able to dismantle Hamas, fortress by fortress, battalion by battalion, until we achieve the ultimate goal, which is the liberation of the Gaza Strip – the entire Gaza Strip – from Hamas,” a spokesman said.
According to General Daniel Hagari, an Israeli army spokesman, soldiers operating in Gaza divided the area into two parts: “Gaza South and Gaza North.” The fiercest fighting is taking place in the north, where Israel says the “center” of Hamas is.
“That has to stop.”
With the death toll rising daily, the leaders of major UN agencies released a joint statement on Sunday expressing their outrage.
“We need an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” they wrote, also calling on Hamas to release the more than 240 hostages it has held since October 7.
On Sunday, the latest official Hamas report counted 9,770 dead, including 4,800 children, in Israeli bombings of the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
These bombings severely affected civilians in this small area of 362 square kilometers with 2.4 million inhabitants, which has been under “total siege” by Israel since October 9, cutting off water supplies, electricity and food.
The Gaza Strip had already been subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since Hamas, designated a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Israel, seized power there in 2007.
The Israeli army again accused Hamas on Monday of building tunnels under hospitals, schools and places of worship to hide fighters and plan attacks, an accusation the Islamist movement has repeatedly denied.
In Israel on October 7, more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed during the Hamas attack. The violence and scale were unprecedented since Israel’s founding in 1948.
According to the army, at least 30 Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ground operation began.
American diplomacy chief Antony Blinken, whose country opposes a ceasefire he says would benefit Hamas, reaffirmed “the United States’ commitment to providing vital humanitarian assistance” in Gaza during an impromptu visit to Ramallah on Sunday , in the West Bank, which has been occupied by Israel since 1967.
Antony Blinken also called for an end to “extremist violence” against Palestinians in the West Bank, where the international community fears the conflict will spread. According to the Palestinian Authority, more than 150 Palestinians have been killed there by fire from Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7.
Tensions have also been high since the start of the war in Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, where an Israeli soldier was seriously injured by a slain attacker on Monday, according to Israeli police.
“No bread, no water”
On Sunday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country was working “behind the scenes” with regional allies to ensure an uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid.
He condemned “the immoral massacre” in Gaza, cut off all contact with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and recalled Ankara’s ambassador to Israel. He also skipped a meeting with Mr. Blinken, who spoke with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan in Ankara on Monday.
The war has turned entire neighborhoods of the Gaza Strip into fields of rubble and led to the displacement of 1.5 million people within the territory, according to the UN.
“The situation is very difficult. There is no bread, no water, nothing, not even salt water. “We saw corpses (on the street), the children were very scared,” said Zakaria Akel, who fled to the south with his family.
“We have no business cleaning up the rubble, so people are dying and we can only watch,” lamented Said al-Najma in the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza, where a bomb attack killed another 30 people on Saturday evening. according to Hamas.
“I cried watching other people’s children die behind my camera. Today it was I who lost my children,” said press photographer Mohammed al-Aloul, who lost four children, four brothers and several of his nephews and nieces in the bombing.
In the south of the Gaza Strip, near the border with Egypt, hundreds of thousands of people live in extremely precarious conditions.
“Jordanian aid”
This border was partially opened on October 21 to allow humanitarian convoys to pass through the Rafah border crossing. According to the UN, a total of 451 trucks had passed by as of Saturday.
Several hundred foreigners, dual nationals and wounded people (1,100 according to the United Nations) were also able to leave Gaza via Rafah last week. However, those evacuations have been suspended since Saturday after Israel denied passage to some injured Palestinians, Egyptian and Palestinian officials said.
The King of Jordan announced early Monday that the Jordanian Air Force has released emergency medical aid to a Jordanian field hospital in Gaza.
This drop was carried out “in coordination” with the Israeli army, a spokesman said.
Another source of tension is Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, a Hamas ally, are raising fears of the conflict spilling over.
According to an AFP count, 81 people have died on the Lebanese side since October 7, including 59 Hezbollah fighters. On the Israeli side, six soldiers and two civilians were killed.