Israel has resumed war with the south in its sights after reducing the northern Gaza Strip to rubble for seven weeks and maintaining a seven-day ceasefire. The south is home to 1.8 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million people, more than half of whom live in shelters, schools, hospitals and even wedding halls. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, the Israeli army has not stopped bombing the south of the Palestinian enclave, but is focusing on the north, where the capital is located, after directing 1.1 million people to move to the southernmost area to draw. This Saturday, a day after the ceasefire expired, the entire Gaza Strip was intensively bombarded by land, sea and air and the death toll rose to 200 in less than 48 hours. Of the 400 targets attacked in the early hours of the morning According to the army, 50 are in the area of Khan Yunis, the capital in the south.
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The armed forces have dropped leaflets on towns between Khan Yunis and the border with Israel, urging people to seek shelter in Rafah, a town further south that was also bombed in the morning. The attacks follow a pattern similar to that seen before the advance into the north: frequent and concentrated in agricultural areas to facilitate later entry by armored vehicles, although the Navy also opened fire with “precise munitions” against “Hamas military targets” in the north According to the army, it opened in the port of Khan Yunis and in Deir Al-Balah. With no escape route through Egypt and the northern Gaza Strip banned by Israel, Palestinians are wondering where to go.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s statements on Saturday suggest that the south may be the scene of operations similar to those in the north. The minister explained that Hamas commanders in the north “already know very well what the Israeli army can do” and that those in cities like Khan Younis and Rafah “understand well what has happened to others.” Hamas’ al-Qasam Brigades fired several rockets into Tel Aviv as exchanges of fire continued between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.
“We are ready to flee at any time because they are bombing everywhere. It’s crazy. Even here, in Rafah, in the south, where they told us to move,” says Hala Riziq, one of the hundreds of thousands of displaced people from the capital, along with her family via WhatsApp message. “It was a miracle that we survived the journey here. Then I received news that my house was bombed by a tank. “I don’t know how damaged it is.” During the truce, he thought about checking again, but he didn’t dare. “It’s too dangerous. “They shot everyone who tried… And now this is hell.”
According to the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 80% of Gaza’s population has been displaced by the war. They line up to get water, charge their cell phones or get food that is expensive and in short supply. With more than half of Gaza’s buildings damaged by bombing and tens of thousands completely destroyed, many have simply been left homeless. Around 958,000 people live in 99 shelters run by the UN Refugee Agency (UNRWA) in the south. Another nearly 200,000, in 124 public schools or hospitals, but also in wedding halls, offices or community centers in various parts of the tiny Palestinian enclave, the most densely populated place in the world. There are also an unknown number, estimated in the hundreds of thousands, in the homes of relatives. OCHA highlights the difficulty of determining their numbers because of the difficulty of tracking their movements and because some return to their homes but remain registered in shelters.
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This Friday, the Israeli army published a map online that divides Gaza into hundreds of small areas, each with a number. In a message in Arabic, he asks citizens to find out which one is theirs and to follow and obey military instructions. “It’s a way to protect their safety, that of their lives and that of their families,” he says. Then in the south, leaflets were released with a QR code that you can scan with your cell phone and connect to the online map. “It is not clear,” reminds OCHA, “how Gazans without electricity and with frequent telecommunications outages will access the map.” The army is also calling for those still in certain neighborhoods of the capital – such as the Yabalia refugee camps , Zeitún and Shuyayia – to head to “well-known shelters and schools” in the northeast and west of the city.
During the week of the ceasefire, which ended this Friday, about 200 trucks carrying humanitarian aid for both the north and the south entered the Gaza Strip every day, as part of the agreement that stopped the bombings and Israel and Hamas Hostages and prisoners were exchanged. Except in isolated cases, there were no fighting within the Gaza Strip or rocket fire against Israel. Since Friday, Palestinian militias have fired around a hundred projectiles.
The respite had, as the World Food Program warned, “no significant impact” on the population’s situation, but Gaza has now returned to its worst “old normal” since October 7: bombings and humanitarian aid in trickles. No trucks arrived on Friday; several dozen this Saturday.
A team from the NGO Doctors Without Borders entered the south of the Gaza Strip on November 14 and headed to hospitals. “We immediately realized that they were not working as such,” Gaza emergency coordinator Nicholas Papachrysostomou said by telephone from Khan Yunis. “They are like a city. With displaced people and families with the few things they could take from their homes through the hallways and reception area. They understand that the healthcare system has collapsed and that it cannot be managed in the usual way […] There are people who shower in hospitals or health centers because they are there and there is water,” he says.
The team is now supporting health centers that cover the consequences of the humanitarian crisis rather than those of the bombings, whose wounded are referred to hospitals and which lack at least a thousand beds, staff and materials, he emphasizes.
Victims of Palestinian attacks this Saturday in Khan Younis. Fatima Shbair (AP)
In five hours, in a health center, about 750 people are treated (“a scandal,” he clarifies) with symptoms related to the precarious situation of the population and the drop in temperature, such as: B. Respiratory infections due to the cold as well as diarrhea and infections. skin, due to overcrowding. “These are things that should be treated with hot water, but it’s not enough,” he adds. In addition, overcrowding with up to half a thousand people per latrine “favors the chain of transmission”. Or that patients with burns as a result of the bombings should receive further treatment in hospitals, but these are only sufficient for emergencies and so end up in health centers. There are also long-term consequences: babies are not vaccinated.
This is the scenario that the UN-system World Health Organization referred to on Tuesday when it warned that more people in the Gaza Strip “will die from disease than from bombings if minimum health needs are not met again.” said his spokeswoman Margaret Harris.
This week, Israel actively and passively warned that the ceasefire was just a pause on the path to the destruction of Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007. It is the main target – the other two are the return of the hostages and a change in the regime – marked by the surprise attack carried out by the Islamist party militia on October 7th, in which around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in places such as a music festival or were killed in houses and streets of towns near the Gaza Strip.
Israel is aware that it is unlikely to achieve its goal without also penetrating the main population centers in the south, even though both its residents and displaced people from the north now reside there. “Without a massive movement [de tropas] In Khan Yunis, a Hamas stronghold, and in the area of Rafah, the tunnel infrastructure used to smuggle weapons from Egypt, all that remains of the war objectives will be the return of the hostages. And not even 100%,” wrote the military commentator for the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, Yossi Yehoshua, this Friday.
US support
The United States supports and finances the Israeli campaign. About 15,000 bombs and 57,000 artillery shells have been fired since October 7, according to the Wall Street Journal published Friday. But she is also concerned about the high number of civilian casualties. Of the 15,207 dead Gazans, more than 6,000 are minors and 4,000 are women, according to data released Saturday by the Hamas government’s Health Ministry. There are also an estimated 6,500 dead under the rubble and more than 40,000 injured.
United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke openly about the issue during his visit to Israel on Thursday, emphasizing that “the massive loss of civilian lives” and the “displacement of the population” in the south cannot be repeated. skala”, which took place in the north. According to Israeli TV Channel 13, a senior American official asked his Israeli interlocutors directly: “You have driven out a million Gazans. How do you make sure you don’t kill them?”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t want questions from Washington, he wants weapons. This was said on Wednesday at a meeting with representatives of local administrations near Gaza, the main target of the Hamas attack, according to a recording from the Israel Hayom newspaper on Thursday. “We need three things from the United States: ammunition, ammunition, ammunition. There are large demonstrations in Western capitals and pressure within the United States. And I applied diplomatic pressure there and gave media interviews. [También al propietario de la red social X, antes Twitter] Elon Musk, that’s why we brought him in. We have to push because our friend [el presidente de Estados Unidos, Joe Biden] They put you under pressure. Space [de maniobra] So the diplomat is the army and the Shabak [los servicios secretos en Israel y Palestina] You can go there and destroy Hamas.”
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