The Israeli army’s incessant strikes on the besieged Palestinian enclave continued on Wednesday, December 27, despite calls for a ceasefire to deliver crucial humanitarian aid to the Gazan population.
Witnesses reported Israeli strikes and ground fighting in Khan Younes, in the southern Gaza Strip, and bombings on the Maghazi and Al-Boureij refugee camps in the center. In the north of the Palestinian territory, violent clashes also took place at dawn in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood of Gaza City, and in the town of Jabaliya.
The Hamas health ministry announced that Israeli military operations in the enclave had left at least 21,110 dead since the start of the war on October 7, including 195 people killed in the last twenty-four hours. It also reported 55,243 injuries. The Israeli army said that 164 of its soldiers have been killed since the start of its ground offensive in the Gaza Strip on October 27.
Earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an “intensification” of Israel’s strikes on the Gaza Strip, while Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi reiterated that the conflict “will last for another many months.”
UN appoints humanitarian aid coordinator
Five days after the adoption of the United Nations (UN) resolution demanding the “large-scale” delivery of humanitarian aid to the enclave, where nearly two million people have been displaced – 85 % of the population -, the United Nations announced Tuesday evening the appointment of the Dutch Sigrid Kaag to the post of coordinator of humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Gaza.
But despite the resolution, no significant progress has been made in recent days in terms of humanitarian aid, and negotiations around a truce appear to have stalled.
According to the Reuters agency, the coordinator of the emergency team of the World Health Organization (WHO), Sean Casey, denounced on Wednesday a “bloodbath” in the enclave, stressing that only 20% of medical infrastructure is still functioning. “Hospitals only receive injured people suffering from serious trauma, on a scale that is quite difficult to imagine. It’s a bloodbath, a carnage,” he warned.
On Wednesday, Internet and telephone telecommunications were still being restored after a new outage the day before, according to the Palestinian operator Paltel, the fourth since the start of the war. The Palestinian Red Crescent declared on Tuesday that it had completely lost contact with its teams on the ground due to this cut, while its radio network was damaged by an Israeli artillery barrage which hit its headquarters in Khan Younes.
“Our people have [never] experienced such a war”
In reaction to the intensification of Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip in recent days, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority – which has ceded control of the Gaza Strip since 2007 to Hamas – castigated Tuesday evening on the microphone of the Egyptian television channel ON, “Netanyahu’s plan [which] is to get rid of the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority.” “What is happening on Palestinian soil these days goes beyond a catastrophe and a genocide,” he said.
“Our people have not experienced such a war, even during the Nakba,” he added, referring to the “catastrophe” that Palestinians associate with the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. after which 760,000 of them were forced into exodus during the first Arab-Israeli war.
While in Israel, the families of the hostages live in anguish, Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer spoke Tuesday evening with Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser of the White House, about the release of hostages, as well as a “different phase” of the war, more targeted against Hamas leaders, and the deployment of aid to Gaza.
For his part, the Emir of Qatar Tamim Ben Hamad Al Thani, whose country had conducted mediation which allowed a truce at the end of November, spoke overnight with American President Joe Biden. The two leaders discussed the efforts needed to “achieve a permanent ceasefire,” Qatari diplomacy said. At the end of November, a one-week truce allowed the release of 105 hostages against 240 Palestinian prisoners, and the entry into Gaza of a large volume of aid. But the efforts of mediators have so far failed to achieve a new humanitarian pause.
Furthermore, beyond Gaza, the specter of an extension of the conflict still looms. In the occupied West Bank, an Israeli raid left six people dead on Wednesday morning and many injured in the Tulkarem sector. Israel is also facing attacks from groups close to Iran, supporters of Hamas, such as Hezbollah on its border with Lebanon or the Houthi rebels of Yemen who are active in the Red Sea.
On Wednesday, Iran also threatened Israel with “direct actions and others carried out by the resistance front”, after the death on Monday in a strike in Syria, which it blames on Israel, of Razi Moussavi, a of his senior officers. When asked, the Israeli army did not confirm the information, saying it “does not comment on information from foreign media.”
