The war between Israel and Hamas celebrated its 100th anniversary on Sundaye Day, despite international calls for a ceasefire in the conflict that has plunged the Gaza Strip into a major humanitarian crisis.
• Also read: War in Gaza: “Nobody will stop us,” warns Netanyahu
• Also read: The Gaza war is a “stain on our shared humanity,” says the UN agency
“The massive death, destruction, displacement, hunger, loss and grief of the last 100 days impairs our common humanity,” said the head of the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, during a visit to the coastal area .
He also stressed that an entire generation of children in Gaza is “traumatized,” that disease continues to spread and that “famine” is looming.
The war was sparked by the Hamas attack from the Gaza Strip on October 7, which killed around 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli figures.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy the Palestinian Islamist movement that has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and has been designated a terrorist group notably by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
The incessant bombardments and gunfire across the narrow strip of land have killed at least 23,843 people, mostly women, teenagers and children, according to the latest report from the local health ministry.
The Israeli blockade, reinforced by the war, is causing severe food and fuel shortages throughout the Gaza Strip, where the health system is collapsing further every day.
“Nobody will stop us”
Fears of a regional conflagration are growing after new attacks against the Houthis, Iran-backed Yemeni rebels who are increasingly carrying out attacks on Israeli-linked merchant ships in solidarity with Palestinians in the Red Sea.
The United States said its forces had reached a “radar site in Yemen” after sites of those Yemeni rebels were hit by American and British attacks.
At the border with Lebanon in northern Israel, the Israeli army said on Sunday it had fired on “terrorists” who had entered its territory, killing four of those fighters.
For more than three months, there have been almost daily exchanges of fire between Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah movement, the Hamas-backed movement and Israeli forces.
At the start of the conflict, tens of thousands of residents were evacuated from areas on both sides of this border.
“No one will stop us, neither The Hague, nor the Axis of Evil, nor anyone else,” stressed Benjamin Netanyahu during a press conference in Tel Aviv, referring in particular to Africa's demand that the South be brought to the International Court of Justice against Israel over one Genocide in Gaza.
Israeli Army Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi immediately assured that his country was waging a “just” war to “defend its right to live here in safety.”
Scream
The Israeli army bombed the Gaza Strip again on Saturday, killing at least 60 people, according to the Hamas Health Ministry.
“We started screaming, I couldn't move, it was someone who pulled me out of the rubble and put me on a cart,” says Nimma al-Akhras, an 80-year-old Palestinian whose house was destroyed by bombings.
The Israeli military said it struck dozens of Hamas positions, including “operational” rocket launchers as well as a Hamas “command post” in the central Gaza Strip.
At least four “terrorists” were killed in air strikes on Khan Younes, the capital in the south of this territory where fighting is concentrated.
Dozens of people pray for the remains of their relatives in front of the al-Najjar hospital in Rafah on the border with Egypt.
Bassam Arafa, who fled the Bureij refugee camp in the middle of the coastal strip, holds up a photo of a little girl on his cell phone: “This little girl, what did she do to them?” She died of starvation, with a piece of bread in her hand .
“This is the resistance they are targeting in Gaza, they are just children.”
“Devastating” effects
An AFP journalist in Rafah noted on Saturday that telecommunications had been partially restored the day after a press release from Paltel, the main Palestinian operator, reporting an outage.
Paltel did not confirm the resumption of service but said an Israeli attack killed two of its employees in Khan Yunis while they were repairing the network.
The rain and cold that hit the region are making the daily survival of the families camping in the courtyard of the al-Nasser medical complex even more difficult.
“But where can we go,” complains forty-year-old Nabila Abu Zayed.
The United Nations estimates that 1.9 million people, or almost 85% of the population, have been forced to leave their homes.
Many are seeking refuge in Rafah or other locations in the south of this small territory, while the local health ministry repeatedly emphasizes that there is no infrastructure to accommodate them.
His spokesman accuses Israel of “targeting hospitals (…) in order to put them out of operation” and warns of “devastating effects”.
Although hospitals in the area are protected by international humanitarian law, they have been attacked on several occasions by the Israeli army.
Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals as bases and civilians as human shields, something the Palestinian movement denies.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), less than half of Gaza's hospitals are functioning, and only partially.
In Israel, too, families and relatives of hostages continue to campaign strongly for the return of their loved ones and try to put pressure on the government through sometimes spectacular but always symbolic actions.
Thousands of people gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday to demand the release of the hostages.
A DJ at the Nova festival, where 364 attendees were killed on October 7, took to the stage in front of the crowd.
“We will continue to come here week after week until everyone is released,” promised Edan Begerano, a 47-year-old protester interviewed by AFP.
Not far away, around a hundred people also demonstrated, but they demanded an end to the war, waving signs saying “No to occupation” and “Revenge is not victory”.