Deadly Israeli airstrikes hit the besieged Gaza Strip on Monday, where ground fighting is raging between the army and Hamas, sending civilians into exodus amid desperate humanitarian and health conditions.
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Witnesses said new attacks targeted the southern Gaza towns of Khan Younes and Rafah, home to hundreds of thousands of civilians who have fled fighting in the north.
According to the Hamas Health Ministry, nearly 18,000 people died in Palestinian territory, the vast majority women and people under 18, in Israeli bombings on October 7 in the Islamist movement's bloody attack against Israel.
According to the authorities, this attack claimed 1,200 lives in Israel, mostly civilians.
The army said on Monday that 104 soldiers had died and 582 soldiers had been injured since ground fighting began in Gaza. Six deaths were reported on Sunday alone.
Hamas' health ministry on Monday reported “dozens” of deaths in the bombings, particularly in Khan Yunis and Rafah, in Gaza City and the neighboring Jabalia refugee camp in the north, and in the Nuseirat and Maghazi camps (center).
Rockets fired from Gaza into Israel caused damage and left one person slightly injured in Holon, a suburb of Tel Aviv, police said.
“I say to the Hamas terrorists: This is the end,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Hamas militants on Sunday, calling on them to lay down their weapons and reiterating that many of them had surrendered in recent days .
In response to the October 7 attack, Israel pledged to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and especially Israel.
In parallel with its campaign of devastating airstrikes, the army has been carrying out a ground offensive against Hamas since October 27, initially focused on the northern Gaza Strip and then expanding to the entire territory.
A seven-day ceasefire from November 24 to December 1 resulted in the release of 105 hostages held by Hamas and affiliated groups, 80 of whom were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Hamas warned on Sunday that none of the 137 hostages still held in Gaza would come out “alive” without “an exchange and negotiation.”
“Not a safe place”
In the south of the small territory, hundreds of thousands of civilians are now being forced into a cramped area near the closed border with Egypt, some of them forced to move several times as fighting spreads.
According to the United Nations, more than half of homes have been destroyed or damaged by the war in Gaza, where 1.9 million people, or 85% of the population, have been displaced.
The Israeli army urged civilians to move to “safe areas” to avoid the fighting and urged thousands of Gazans to flee wherever they could: by car or truck, sometimes by cart or on foot.
Rafah, on the Egyptian border, was turned into a massive camp with hundreds of tents hastily erected from pieces of wood, plastic sheeting and tarpaulins.
Oum Mohammed al-Jabri, a 56-year-old woman staying with her brother in Rafah, lost seven children in a strike at her home in the middle of the night.
“It's all gone. I still have four of eleven children. We went from Gaza to Khan Younes and then were taken to Rafah. That night they bombed the house and destroyed it. They said Rafah was a safe place. There is no safe place,” she told AFP.
According to Abu Tareq Sobh, the 55-year-old owner, the house was hit by two rockets at 2 a.m. According to Hamas' health ministry, the bombing killed 10 people and injured dozens.
“There is no truly safe place in the Gaza Strip, not even the UN compound… was hit,” the head of the UN refugee agency said on Monday. The Palestinians (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, before they went to the area where the Palestinians were. The situation of the civilian population was, in his opinion, desperate.
“More and more people haven't eaten for a day, two days, three days… People are lacking everything,” he said.
Risk of disease
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha), tens of thousands of displaced people who have arrived in Rafah since December 3 are “living in overcrowded places, both inside and outside shelters, in terrible conditions.”
“Crowds wait for hours outside aid distribution centers, people urgently need food, water, shelter, care and protection,” while “the lack of latrines increases the risk of disease spread,” Ocha added.
Israel has imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip since October 9th. Food, medicine and fuel arriving from Egypt remain severely insufficient and cannot be transported beyond Rafah, according to the United Nations.
In the north, thousands of displaced people have also set up tents around the UNRWA compound in the Al Rimal sector, west of Gaza City, to flee the incessant bombardment, according to a UNRWA correspondent. AFP.
Garbage is piling up in this makeshift camp. Dozens of homes and businesses were destroyed in the area, including the buildings of the Islamic University and the neighboring Al-Azhar University.
“We escaped on Saturday and set up a tent. There is no water there. There is no electricity, no bread, no milk and no diapers for the children. It is a disaster,” Rami Al-Dahdouh, a 23-year-old tailor who is now unemployed and from the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, told AFP.
After the UN Security Council failed to vote for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” on Friday due to Washington's veto, the General Assembly is scheduled to meet on Tuesday to discuss the situation in Gaza.
The draft text seen by AFP on Sunday largely repeats the resolution rejected on Friday. The text reports on the “catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip” and calls for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” and the “immediate and unconditional” release of all hostages.
The war has increased tensions elsewhere in the region, particularly on Israel's northern border with southern Lebanon, where the Shiite Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally, is well established. A local official was killed by an Israeli bombardment in Lebanon on Monday, according to the official Lebanese News Agency.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), Israeli aircraft in Syria carried out night strikes in the suburbs of Damascus against Hezbollah sites, killing four people.