While US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this Friday to do “more to protect civilians” in Gaza and the West Bank, images of bodies and injuries from bomb attacks followed the Strip in a few hours: two at the doors of hospitals ; in one of the cases against an ambulance that, according to the Israeli army, was used by “a Hamas terrorist cell.” The television images show about a dozen lifeless bodies on the ground, half of them children; Gazans picked up wounded people from the ground and a convoy of Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances lined up, one of them stained with blood. Hours earlier, the leader of the Hezbollah party militia, Hasan Nasrallah, had ruled out the risk of impending regional escalation in a highly anticipated speech. He limited himself to warning that his involvement in the war – possibly full-scale but moderate at the moment – will depend on how Israel acts in the Gaza Strip and on the Lebanese border itself.
“We had informed the Red Cross, in accordance with international law, that we would transport a convoy of wounded people in ambulances from Al-Shifa hospital,” said Hamas government Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qudra. He assures that there were two bombings: one at the doors of the hospital and another in a square a kilometer away in Gaza City, the capital surrounded by Israeli troops.
In a statement, the Israeli army assured that “several Hamas terrorists were killed in the bombing” and stressed that it was a “combat zone” that civilians had to evacuate. About 20,000 Palestinians are fleeing the attacks in Al Shifa, which Israeli forces are insisting on evacuating because of their assurances that the Hamas command center is underground there.
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Shortly afterwards, the Al Jazeera network showed another bomb attack in front of the Indonesian hospital in the Yabalia refugee camp. According to director Atef al Kahlut, around 50 people died, 40% of them children.
“There are no safe places”
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Both centers are located in the northern half, which Israel is bombing continuously and where it is pressuring civilians (including those in hospitals who have received multiple warnings) to focus on the southern half to allow its mission to “destroy Hamas” to go unhindered to be able to follow up. The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has “lost contact with many shelters” in the area, its director in the Gaza Strip, Thomas White, said this Friday. “These are people who seek refuge and protection under the flag of the United Nations in accordance with international humanitarian law. […]. “To be clear, there are currently no safe places in Gaza,” he added.
Friday was a day full of contrasts between images of corpses and diplomatic handshakes. Less than 100 kilometers from Gaza in Tel Aviv, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated his support for Israel (“it has not only the right but the duty to defend itself,” he said), albeit with hundreds of deaths per year Day, called on Israel to “do more to protect Palestinian civilians” in its offensive and to “do everything possible” to allow the entry of humanitarian aid through Egypt, limited to dozens of trucks a day without fuel.
On his third visit to the region, the US diplomat chief also addressed words to the West Bank, where ultranationalist settlers have forced hundreds of Palestinians from their homes and the death toll is unprecedented in two decades. There, too, the civilian population must be “protected” and “extreme violence against Palestinians must be stopped,” he said.
The central theme of the trip was “Humanitarian Breaks”. They were requested again by Blinken and “urgently” by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, in a conversation with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. Its format is being negotiated in the context of the release of the more than 200 hostages in Gaza, and as Israeli troops advance in the enclave, at greater speed these days. On the one hand, it is a strategy to put pressure on Hamas to exchange the hostages. On the other hand, Israel is aware that the passage of weeks and the accumulation of bodies left by its offensive will undermine the approval it received from the West after the 1,400 deaths caused by the Hamas attack on the 7th.
Injured after the Israeli attack on an ambulance next to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza on Friday. Mohammed Al Masri (Portal)
This Friday, Netanyahu made it clear for the time being: “We are continuing with all our strength and Israel rejects a temporary ceasefire that does not include the release of our hostages.” That means no hostages for thousands of Palestinian prisoners, as Hamas is demanding, but kidnappings Exchange for a pause in attacks and the easing of the complete blockade (no fuel and dozens of trucks with water, food and medicine only for the south). ), which it claims, according to information provided to local media about the Strip.
Hezbollah’s “constructive ambiguity.”
A third picture marked the day. After almost a month of silence and war in Gaza, Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese militia party Hezbollah, has delivered his highly anticipated speech. Many eyes were on what message the most powerful armed group would convey on an Israeli border where the army was on “very high” alert. They fought a war back in 2006 that ended in a draw.
Conscious of this expectation, Nasrallah addressed more than just the thousands of supporters listening to him on screens waving the movement’s yellow flags. He has reflected on the rest of the world and spoken “with constructive ambiguity,” as he said, as he stressed that on the Lebanese front “all scenarios are on the table.” “I repeat, there are all options and we can choose one at any time,” he stressed.
Since the attack by Hamas, its ally in the so-called “Axis of Resistance,” Hezbollah has limited itself to fighting on the border, in which it lost fifty militiamen. While these attacks are unprecedented since the 2006 war, they are far beyond Hezbollah’s potential and are causing more concern and military mobilization in Israel than deaths at the border.
Nasrallah has not ignored this, reaching out to both those who perceive his commitment as timid and those who fear an escalation that could lead to all-out regional war. He told the former that their current role “may seem small,” but it is the “most significant” in terms of “tools, strategies, weapons and even targets,” forcing Israel to redirect many troops to the northern border. . But most importantly, he made it clear that it is not final. “I assure you: This will not be the end, it will not be enough,” he emphasized with a boxing parable: “Victory will come on points, not by knockout.”
To the latter – those who fear that Hezbollah would drag a Lebanon in economic and institutional ruin into a war against the most powerful army in the Middle East – he told Israel that if they had limited themselves to “making statements of condemnation,” would attack Gaza with all its might.” “Some will say we are playing with fire, but it makes sense [lo que hacemos]“, he clarified.
Between the triumphant rhetoric and many phrases about the fragility shown by Israel in the Hamas attack, which he defined as a “security, military, political, diplomatic and even psychological earthquake,” Nasrallah sent a pretty clear message: Hezbollah is growing or invade less in the game based on two elements. First, “the development of events in Gaza,” where “the enemy must calculate its movements” because this can give the Lebanese militias “more strength and endurance.” Another reason is the shared border, where every death of a civilian in Lebanon threatens to take an equal toll on Israel.
Supporters of Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah during his speech on the war this Friday in Beirut. WAEL HAMZEH (EFE)
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