After thirty-eight days of war with Hamas, Israel affirmed on Monday, November 13, that the Palestinian Islamist movement had “lost control in Gaza.” Its fighters are “fleeing to the south” of this enclave, where the Islamist movement has been in power since 2007, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a video message broadcast by several television channels.
Civilians “loot Hamas bases. They no longer believe in the government [of the Islamist movement]” in Gaza, the minister also assured. The Palestinian movement, classified as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, did not react to these assertions.
Relentlessly shelled by Israel, the small Palestinian territory is plunged into a catastrophic humanitarian situation. In the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, the largest in the territory, “the situation is very serious, it is inhumane,” Doctors Without Borders warned on X (ex-Twitter), quoting one of its surgeons, present in the complex.
“People are going to die in a few hours.”
For days, clashes between Hamas fighters and Israeli soldiers have been concentrated in Gaza City and paramedics have been unable to recover the dead and wounded from the surrounding streets, the doctor added. “We have no electricity, no food, no water in the hospital,” he said. People will die in a few hours without working ventilators. »
Sick people and babies have already died, Hamas said, due to a lack of electricity at the hospital, which houses around 600 patients and thousands of civilians seeking shelter. For its part, the Israeli army accuses the Islamist movement of having installed its infrastructure in a network of tunnels under the hospital, and of using patients and refugees as “human shields”.
The United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs had specified that twenty of the thirty-six hospitals in the Gaza Strip were no longer operating in recent days. “The world cannot remain silent when hospitals, which should be safe havens, are transformed into scenes of death, devastation, despair. Ceasefire now,” once again pleaded the Director General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“Our war is against Hamas.”
Joe Biden said he was “in contact with the Israelis” on the subject. “I hope and expect less intrusive actions regarding the hospital” Al-Shifa, the US president said. And added: “the hospital must be protected.”
“The idea is to try to evacuate people, to evacuate as many as possible” from the hospital site, said an Israeli army spokesperson, Peter, on Monday night. Lerner.
For several weeks, the UN has been asking for fuel to be transported to the besieged Palestinian territory deprived of electricity, in particular to operate generators in hospitals. Due to a lack of fuel, the trucks of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees will not be able to receive international aid coming from Egypt via the Rafah terminal on Tuesday, its boss, Thomas White, announced on Monday on X.
Israel refuses to let the fuel enter Gaza, saying it could benefit Hamas’s military operations. But the head of Israeli diplomacy, Eli Cohen, admitted Monday that his country must strive to prolong “the legitimacy” of military operations in the face of growing international pressure.
On Monday, the army announced that it “continued to carry out raids, targeting terrorist infrastructures installed in government buildings, in the heart of the civilian population, including in schools, universities, mosques”. But, a military spokesperson, Richard Hecht, clarified on X: “Let me be clear, our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza. »
Identity of Israeli hostage confirmed
Furthermore, the Israeli army confirmed on Tuesday the identity of a female soldier hostage from Hamas, after the publication by the Palestinian Islamist movement of a video showing the young woman in captivity.
“Our hearts go out to the Marciano family, whose daughter, Noa, was brutally kidnapped by the Hamas terrorist organization,” the Israeli army said, accusing Hamas “of resorting to psychological terrorism.” This is the first time the army has confirmed the identity of one of the approximately 240 people taken hostage and taken to the Gaza Strip during the bloody Hamas attack on Israeli soil on October 7.
The broadcast of the video comes at a time when Hamas accuses Israel of “procrastinating” in discussions, via mediation from Qatar, relating to the possible release of dozens of hostages in exchange for a five-day truce. On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the possibility of an agreement to release hostages, a condition according to him for any ceasefire.
The Israeli army claims to have found “clues”, such as a baby bottle or a piece of rope near a chair, suggesting that Hamas was holding hostages under the Al-Rantissi hospital, located in the north of the Gaza Strip.
