Israel said on Tuesday evening that its troops were now “in the heart of Gaza City,” a month after the start of the war sparked by the Palestinian movement Hamas’s unprecedented attack in Israel.
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More than 10,300 people, most of them civilians, including 4,237 children, died in Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack, according to a recent report from the Hamas Health Ministry on Tuesday.
“Stop this unjust war (…). They target civilians in their homes. Stop this machine of destruction. Save us,” said Hicham Koulab, a displaced Palestinian hit by Israeli bombings in Rafah, in the territory’s south.
Israel, which has vowed to “destroy” Hamas, sent Israeli ground troops there, which continued to advance in the Gaza Strip under air cover, and on Tuesday evening Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant claimed they were “in the heart of Gaza City.” .”
During the day, a minute’s silence was observed in several Israeli cities and institutions in memory of the victims of the attack carried out by Hamas on October 7 in the Gaza Strip under its control.
Since that date, at least 1,400 people have died on the Israeli side, according to Israeli authorities, most of them civilians killed on the day of the attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history.
That day, Hamas militants who entered southern Israel on the Gaza border also took more than 240 people hostage.
“Terrible scar”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening that “without the release of the hostages” there would be “no ceasefire” and no fuel deliveries to the Gaza Strip.
While Israel unilaterally withdrew its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005 after 38 years of occupation, Netanyahu told American broadcaster ABC News on Monday evening that his country would “assume overall responsibility for security” in the Palestinian territory indefinitely after the war in his opinion, to prevent the return of Hamas, an organization designated as “terrorist” by the United States and the European Union.
“In general, we do not support the reoccupation of the Gaza Strip,” Washington replied.
A month after the start of the war, in the square of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, more than a thousand people, mostly students and teachers, observed a moment of silence together, then prayed and sang the “national anthem.”
“The atrocities have left a terrible scar and trauma on a personal level but also on a national level,” said Asher Cohen, the president of the university where several graduates were killed, as testimony after testimony followed at the microphone. interrupted by tears.
Demands a ceasefire
As the Israeli army intensifies its air and sea bombing campaigns, NGOs, the UN, Arab world leaders and other countries continue to call for a ceasefire.
An idea also rejected by the United States, a close ally of Israel, which is pushing for “humanitarian pauses” and insisting on “Israel’s right to self-defense.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres on Tuesday again called for an “immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in the Palestinian territory. He also condemned “terrorist acts” by Hamas on October 7 and reiterated his call for the hostages to be released.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also called for a ceasefire, an “indispensable prerequisite” to organize humanitarian assistance, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) called on the parties to put an end to the suffering of the civilian population and lamented a “moral bankruptcy”.
The fiercest ground fighting is taking place in the north of the territory, where Gaza City is located, where Israel says the “center” of Hamas is located.
According to the Israeli army, “troops have secured a Hamas military stronghold in the last 24 hours (…) seizing rockets, anti-tank missiles, weapons and various intelligence equipment.” Planes also destroyed “Hamas tunnels”.
The Israeli bombings are having a serious impact on the approximately 2.4 million Palestinians trapped in the 362 km2 area. The Israeli-imposed siege since October 9, when Gaza had already been under an Israeli blockade for more than 16 years, has deprived them of water, electricity and food supplies.
According to the United Nations, they also pushed 1.5 million people onto the streets.
The Israeli army has repeatedly called on Palestinian civilians in leaflets and text messages to leave the north of the Gaza Strip towards the south. However, the south of the territory continues to be hit by Israeli bombing.
“Not a safe place”
“We are civilians. The Jews (Israelis) say go to a safe place. “There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip,” protested Bilal Loubad, a Palestinian displaced person in Rafah, as people gathered around the bodies of their relatives killed in a strike.
After morning strikes in Gaza City’s neighborhoods, thousands of residents, including children, have taken to the road south, walking for miles. Israeli tanks were stationed on one of the streets used by the displaced people, some of whom carried white flags.
“We came on foot from the center of the Gaza Strip to the south. I didn’t think it would take this long,” said Amira Al-Sakani, hugging one of her small children. She says she saw “bodies” along the way, “some in pieces.”
According to the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza, “dozens” of bodies and injured people still lie on the roads between the north and south of the Gaza Strip, and Israel “is not allowing ambulances to clear them (…) out”.
According to an AFP journalist, on Tuesday hundreds of people with foreign passports waited to be evacuated to Egypt at the Rafah crossing, the only crossing in the Gaza Strip not controlled by Israel.
AFP monitored the first arrivals on the Egyptian side, particularly an injured Palestinian woman who was taken to an Egyptian ambulance.
Dozens of injured Palestinians and hundreds of foreign passport holders had already been evacuated between Wednesday and Friday.
In addition to the devastating bombings and fighting, Palestinians fleeing to the Gaza Strip complain of having no water or food, and according to Mr. Guterres, the 569 aid trucks that have arrived in Gaza since October 21 “face nothing.” from …”. an ocean of needs”.
As the international community fears an escalation of the conflict, exchanges of fire continue on the Israeli-Lebanese border between the Israeli army on the one hand and Hezbollah and its allies, including Hamas, on the other. Mr. Netanyahu warned on Tuesday evening that Hezbollah would make the “mistake of a lifetime” if it joined the war.
Violence has also increased in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967, where more than 150 Palestinians have been killed by shelling by Israeli soldiers or settlers since October 7, according to the Palestinian Authority.