Four days after the adoption of a resolution at the UN demanding an “immediate ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, and the day after an order from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordering Israel to To prevent the famine which was “settling in”, the fighting continued on Friday March 29 in the Palestinian enclave. The Israeli army focused its attacks on the town of Rafah and continued its military operations in and around several hospitals.
The bombings carried out on Friday by the Israeli army targeted several targets in Rafah, the large city in the south of Gaza where almost half the population of the enclave has taken refuge, according to the UN. The Hamas-controlled health ministry reported “dozens of deaths” since the day before, bringing the death toll to 32,623 and more than 75,000 wounded in nearly six months of war.
The Israeli government remains determined to launch a major ground offensive in this area, despite the massive presence of refugees and growing international pressure, including from US allies. “We hold the northern Gaza Strip as well as Khan Yunis. We have cut the Gaza Strip in two and we are preparing to enter Rafah,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday evening, for whom the Palestinian city is the last stronghold of Hamas in the enclave.
According to a senior American official, cited by Agence France-Presse, the Israeli delegation which canceled this week “a meeting devoted to Rafah” accepted “a new date” to discuss possible “alternatives” to a ground invasion.
Israeli ground operations continued, in and around three large hospitals, accused of housing Hamas and Islamic Jihad bases. Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest hospital in the enclave, has been under siege since March 18. The Israeli army says it has “eliminated around 200 terrorists”, evacuated thousands of people taking refuge inside and prevented “any harm to civilians, patients, medical teams and equipment”. Information that could not be verified by local media or by civil defense and the Red Crescent, because the hospital area in Gaza City has since been sealed off.
Israeli tanks and armored vehicles also surrounded the Nasser, Al-Amal and Al-Qarara hospitals, about a kilometer apart, in the town of Khan Yunis. There too, the Israeli army says it killed Palestinian fighters. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, thousands of civilians were sheltering in the Nasser hospital, the largest in the south of the territory, at the start of the week. Al-Amal hospital “completely stopped working” on Tuesday.
Matthew Hollingworth, responsible for the Palestinian territories at the UN World Food Program, is the latest official to warn of the catastrophic humanitarian state in the Palestinian enclave. “There is no other place in the world where such large numbers of people face imminent famine,” he wrote. According to the UN, almost all of the 2.4 million men, women and children surviving in the Gaza Strip are at risk of starvation, particularly in the North.
The day before, the International Court of Justice had said that Israel, which established a blockade of the enclave, must provide “urgent humanitarian aid”. Several countries organize airdrops and expeditions by sea, but all recognize that this cannot replace transport by road.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), says Israel must “allow UNRWA to reach the north of the Gaza Strip with food convoys (…) daily and open other land crossing points”. Israel has accused the UN agency of employing hundreds of “terrorists” in Gaza and now refuses to let its humanitarian convoys pass.
Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced Friday that it had “approved” the participation of an Israeli delegation in the upcoming truce discussions, which should begin “in the coming days.”
Earlier this week, in the wake of the UN resolution demanding an “immediate ceasefire” during the month of Ramadan, the delegations of Israel and Hamas accused each other of the bogging down of negotiations . In addition to a truce lasting several weeks, it is also about the fate of the 130 hostages held by Palestinian Islamist groups and Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
Qatar – which plays the role of mediator with Egypt and the United States – had said that despite negative comments from both camps, indirect negotiations continued. Since the start of the war, only one truce has been established for a week at the end of November.