Two and a half months after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas on October 7, the Islamist movement declared that Israeli military operations in the Palestinian enclave left, according to it, 20,258 dead and more than 53,000 injured. . According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, the death toll includes 201 people killed in the past 24 hours.
Hamas ministry spokesman Ashraf Al-Qudra accused the Israeli army of “committing several atrocious massacres resulting in the deaths of dozens of people in the camp and town of Jabaliya, and in the area of Tal Al-Zaatar”, including some civilians “executed” according to him, during a ground operation. He also affirmed that Israeli aircraft and artillery targeted several targets from the north to the south of the territory, including the Nusseirat refugee camp (center) where a strike killed 18 people.
Asked by Agence France-Presse (AFP), the Israeli army did not specifically respond to the accusations of executions, but assured that its strikes “against military targets are in accordance with the provisions of international law”. AFPTV images show a body under the rubble in the streets of Jabaliya as well as massive destruction.
The Israeli army, for its part, announced on Saturday that it had lost five soldiers over the last two days (four on Friday and one on Saturday). This brings to 144 the number of Israeli soldiers killed since the start of the Israeli ground offensive in the Palestinian territory on October 27. It also broadcast images showing its soldiers advancing through the ruins and opening fire on targets in Gaza City, claiming that “armed terrorists who attempted to attack the soldiers were eliminated” and several “buildings used as military sites destroyed.”
Uncertainties around hostages and a new truce
After five days of laborious negotiations, the UN Security Council adopted a text on Friday calling for the “immediate” and “large-scale” delivery of aid to Gaza, where the civilian population lives in terrible conditions. The resolution, which refrains from calling for a “ceasefire”, rejected by Israel and its American ally, calls for “creating the conditions for a lasting cessation of hostilities”.
United Nations boss Antonio Guterres on Friday blasted the “massive obstacles” to aid distribution created by the way Israel is carrying out its “offensive” in Gaza. The aid, whose entry into Gaza is controlled by Israel, arrives in dribs and drabs from Egypt and from the Israeli border post of Kerem Shalom, but it is very far from meeting the immense needs of a population largely threatened by famine, according to the UN.
In this context, the Egyptian and Qatari mediators are trying to reach a compromise on a new truce which would allow greater aid and the release of Palestinian hostages and prisoners incarcerated by Israel. At the end of November, a one-week truce allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners as well as more aid.
But the belligerents remain intransigent. Hamas demands a stop to the fighting before any negotiations on the hostages. Israel is open to the idea of a truce but rules out any ceasefire before the “elimination” of the Islamist movement, classified in particular as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel.
Hamas military wing spokesman Abu Obeida said in a statement Friday that his group had “lost contact” with its fighters charged with guarding five Israeli hostages, including three elderly men shown in a video. aired December 18. “We believe these hostages were killed during a Zionist strike,” he said without further details. No confirmation has yet been obtained from the Israeli authorities.
“Hunger, starvation and the spread of disease”
In the Gaza Strip, where entire neighborhoods have been destroyed and 1.9 million of the estimated 2.4 million residents displaced by the violence, “the most pressing demand is an immediate ceasefire,” he said. said the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Saturday.
He recalled that “hunger, famine and the spread of disease” widely threaten the 362 km2 territory, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are housed in makeshift camps, especially in Rafah in the south.
“No place is safe, there is nowhere to go,” Thomas White, the director of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the Gaza Strip, lamented on X .
After repeated drone attacks in the Red Sea claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels, in solidarity with the Palestinians, a drone also struck a commercial ship in the Indian Ocean on Saturday, two maritime agencies said, with one saying that the ship was linked to Israel.