Waiting for what the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, says tomorrow in Tel Aviv on his third visit in less than a month and the leader of the Hezbollah group, Hasan Nasrallah in Beirut in his first speech since the start of the war between Israel and the jihadist group Hamas, fighting and attacks intensify in the northern Gaza Strip. While its capital is now completely surrounded by soldiers, the Israeli-Lebanese border is heating up under the watchful eye of Iran and the US.
“We are on maximum alert on all fronts. The Air Force acts in the Gaza Strip with great force but make no mistake. We apply less than half of our capacity. (…) There are people prepared at any time to get on the planes and attack on other fronts if necessary,” warned the head of the Army, Herzi Halevi, in a message to Nasrallah practically at the same time that Hamas and Hezbollah launched the largest attack of projectiles, anti-tank missiles and drones from Lebanon. explosives against Israeli towns since last October 7. In response, Israel bombed Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli ground offensive, the location of the main stronghold of the armed wing of Hamas and the provision of the humanitarian situation have divided the Gaza Strip into two zones. In the south, the vast majority of displaced people are in search of shelter from the incessant bombs and aid is arriving from the Egyptian border crossing, which on the other hand reopened this Thursday to receive almost 400 foreigners and seriously injured people. The north, meanwhile, is the scene of the fighting and ambushes that accompanied the advance of soldiers, tanks and bulldozers to Gaza City where Hamas waits especially from the tunnels.
“The soldiers have been operating in Gaza and surround it from various directions. And they maintain face-to-face combat against a cruel enemy,” said Halevi, who paid tribute to the 19 soldiers killed in the ground operation that began last Friday: “This war has a painful price. We have lost the best of our children but we are fighting for our right and the right of future generations to live here in security and prosperity.” Lieutenant Colonel Salman Habaka (33) is the highest-ranking officer killed in Gaza. This Druze officer, who became famous in Israel for his intervention in the defense of Kibbutz Beeri on 7-0, died in an intense combat.
According to the Army, “more than 130 terrorists have died in the last few hours.” Hamas, which does not give figures for the casualties of its armed wing, reported the death of at least 15 people in the Bureij refugee camp in an Israeli attack. Shortly after, at least 20 people died in a school-shelter in Jabalia, according to the UN. “I have received reports that three of our schools that shelter about 20,000 people were hit,” the Commissioner General of the Palestinian Refugee Agency, Philippe Lazzarino, told CNN. In the Shati refugee camp, they noted that the Air Force dropped leaflets asking the inhabitants to evacuate “immediately because the Army will attack the Hamas terrorists in the next few hours.”
According to the Ministry of Health of Gaza under Hamas control since 2007, more than 9,000 Palestinians have died in the military offensive launched by Israel in response to the jihadist attack that left 1,400 dead and 242 kidnapped. Hamas warned that 16 of the 35 hospitals with the capacity to admit patients were out of service due to bombing and lack of fuel. In this sense, Halevi opened the possibility of his entry into the Palestinian enclave, as Blinken will request today, as long as he does not reach Hamas, ensuring that it has fuel and uses it only for the Ezzedin Al Qassam Brigades.
“The situation in Gaza is indescribable. Hospitals packed with wounded, lying in the corridors; morgues overflowing; doctors operating without anesthesia; thousands of people seeking refuge from the bombings; families crammed into overcrowded schools, desperate for food and water; toilets overflowing and the risk of disease outbreaks spreading; and everywhere, fear, death, destruction, loss,” said World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu. According to him, “70 percent of the dead in Israel and Gaza are women and children.”
Although the war may last several months, discussions about exit mechanisms are intense in Israel and the international community. Egypt refuses to administer post-Hamas Gaza alongside Israel and the international community, according to Al Arabiya. One of the ideas – reveals the newspaper Yediot Aharonot – is to allow the departure of the members and leaders of the armed wing of Hamas in exchange for the release of those kidnapped. In this way, Israel would achieve the two declared objectives of its offensive (end of Hamas and return of hostages) without needing to occupy for a long time the territory from which it withdrew in 2005. A perhaps impossible option if Yahia Sinwar’s movement remains faithful. to one of its founding slogans: “Fight to the death.”
