Since the start of the ground offensive in the town of Rafah, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip, on May 7, bombings and fighting have at the same time intensified around Nousseirat, and, further north, in Gaza City and Jabaliya, where the Israeli army says it is carrying out “targeted” operations. Witnesses reported, on Sunday May 19, explosions and continuous fighting all night in Jabaliya.
In the north of the Gaza Strip, artillery fire was heard in the Sheikh Zayed area, while in the south, on the border with Egypt, witnesses described Israeli helicopters opening fire in the Gaza Strip. east of the city of Rafah.
An Israeli airstrike killed twenty people before dawn on Sunday in the Nusseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, Al-Aqsa hospital and witnesses reported.
“We received twenty deaths and several wounded after an Israeli airstrike targeted a house that belonged to the Hassan family in Nousseirat camp,” Al-Aqsa Hospital said in a statement. According to witnesses, the strike took place in the middle of the night, around 3 a.m. (2 a.m. Paris time). The Israeli army said it was verifying these facts.
Benny Gantz, the main rival of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, gave the head of government of the Hebrew state three weeks on Saturday to adopt a strategic “action plan”, particularly on the post-war in the Gaza Strip. , otherwise he will resign.
Leader of the National Union Party (center-right) and former defense minister, Mr. Gantz joined the National Union war cabinet after the attack on October 7, 2023. The cabinet has five members, including three main ones are Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Gantz and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
One of the plan’s “goals” must be “the establishment of a US-European-Arab-Palestinian administration that will manage civil affairs” in Gaza “and lay the foundations for a future solution that is neither Hamas ni [Mahmoud] Abbas,” president of the Palestinian Authority, which was driven out of the Gaza Strip in 2007 by Hamas, Gantz said.
He also called for normalization with Saudi Arabia “within the broader framework that will enable an alliance between the ‘free world’ and the Arab world against Iran and its allies.” “The conditions set by Benny Gantz are rehashed remarks whose meaning is clear: the end of the war and the defeat of Israel,” reacted the head of the Israeli government, accusing his rival of “looking for an excuse to overthrow the government » and wanting “the creation of a Palestinian state”.
Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud and White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, who met on Sunday in the Saudi city of Dhahran, discussed “the work carried out by both sides on the issue Palestinian, to find a credible path towards a two-state solution that meets the aspirations of the Palestinian people and their legitimate rights,” Saudi state media reported.
The talks also addressed “the situation in Gaza and the need to end the war and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid” into the Palestinian territory.
