– / AFP
(Satellite photo by Maxar Technologies of the Gaza Strip on October 10, 2023, which was bombed by Israel after the Hamas attack)
INTERNATIONAL – The number of victims of the war between Israel and Hamas continues to rise dizzyingly early on the morning of Wednesday, October 11th. In total, thousands of deaths were recorded, four days after the surprise attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement since Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the major offensive launched by Hamas against Israel on Saturday as “atrocity not seen since the Holocaust” and promised that his country would win “by force, enormous force.” While Tel Aviv is still bombing Gaza, the Israeli army has also attacked Syria and southern Lebanon in response to rocket fire.
Here we take stock of the situation:
Israel fires on Lebanon and Syria
Israel announced on Tuesday that it had partially regained control of its border with the Gaza Strip, which had been hit by Israeli attacks. The Israeli army has “more or less taken back control of the border fence” with Gaza, “but infiltrations can still occur,” said its spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht.
Tel Aviv, which announced the evacuation of the border areas, imposed a “total siege” on the Gaza Strip and cut off supplies of water, electricity and food to the Palestinian enclave. Around Gaza and on the border with Lebanon, 300,000 reservists were mobilized and tens of thousands of soldiers were stationed.
On Tuesday, Hamas said volleys of rockets were fired from southern Lebanon toward Israel again, prompting a response from the Israeli state, which said it had attacked positions of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian movement.
On another front, the Israeli army said it fired shells into neighboring Syria from the Golan Heights on Tuesday evening in response to the “firing” of projectiles into that territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2007, is threatening to execute hostages kidnapped in Israel, including young people captured during a music festival.
1200 dead in Israel
The death toll on the Israeli side from the Hamas offensive against Israel has risen to 1,200, the Israeli army spokesman said on Wednesday morning, compared to more than 1,000 deaths reported so far. More than 2,700 people were injured.
50 people are officially considered “hostages or missing”. In total, the war has already left more than 3,000 dead on both sides, including civilians, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters.
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The army also announced Tuesday that it had recovered the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters in areas neighboring the Gaza Strip. Israel has admitted that nearly 150 Israeli civilians and soldiers were kidnapped. Many foreigners are missing.
At least 18 Thais, 14 Americans, ten Nepalis, seven Argentines, eight French, two Ukrainians, four Russian-Israelis, one Cambodian, two Brits, one Cambodian, one Canadian, one Brazilian, two Peruvians and two Filipinos have been killed since Saturday, according to Information from the authorities in your country.
According to local authorities, 830 people died on the Palestinian side. Hamas announced that two of its senior officials had been killed by Israeli strikes. Eight Palestinian journalists were also killed.
Discoveries of bloodshed in two kibbutzim
The Israeli army discovered scenes of absolute horror in two kibbutzim near the Gaza border. According to the NGO Zaka, which was involved in the body recovery, “more than 100 people died” in the Beeri Kibbutz alone. “They shot everyone,” “they murdered children, babies, old people, everyone in cold blood,” said Moti Bukjin, the NGO spokesman.
About a hundred more people were killed in the Kfar Aza kibbutz, where atrocities against babies were reported, although the exact number could not be confirmed by the Israeli army.
Netanyahu denounces “a cruelty not seen since the Holocaust.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday evening that Hamas’ attack on IsraelL was “an atrocity unseen since the Holocaust” during a telephone interview with American President Joe Biden.
“We were hit on Saturday by a brutal attack not seen since the Holocaust,” Benjamin Netanyahu said in a video released by his office. “Hundreds of massacres, destroyed families in their beds, in their homes, brutal rape and murder of women, more than a hundred kidnappings (…), they took dozens of children, tied them up, burned and executed them, they beheaded soldiers,” added he added while on the phone with Joe Biden.
Joe Biden denounces “pure evil” and is ready to provide more help
US President Joe Biden called the Hamas attacks “pure evil” and reported “heartbreaking” news of “babies killed and entire families massacred.”
The United States is ready to provide “additional resources” to support Israel, Joe Biden said, after Washington has already sent them military aid and moved its carrier strike group closer to the Mediterranean. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected in Israel on Thursday.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia are possible with Israel at the moment as hostilities continue, a Hamas official based in Doha said. on the Hamas offensive, but rejected allegations of their involvement.
Concern about the situation in Gaza
For their part, NGOs warned about the health situation in the Gaza Strip and called for a humanitarian corridor to support medical assistance, while the Ministry of Health in the enclave warned that the lack of supplies and medicine would lead to a “catastrophic situation”.
The situation in hospitals is catastrophic. The Al-Chifa hospital in the Gaza Strip is overcrowded with wounded people. “Some die long before they can be treated,” says a doctor.
The UN recalled that Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip was “prohibited” by international humanitarian law and that the European Union had decided to maintain its development aid intended for the Palestinian people.
What Hamas says
The Hamas offensive was launched 50 years and one day after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which took Israel by surprise and left 2,600 Israeli dead in three weeks. The Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, announced that it had launched this major offensive to “put an end to the crimes of the occupation,” referring to Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
“No negotiations are possible at the moment” with Israel as hostilities continue, a Doha-based Hamas official said. Hamas also condemned “inflammatory” statements by Biden and concluded that the American president was trying to “cover up Israel’s crimes.”
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