The Israeli army announced on Sunday, November 5, a campaign of “significant” strikes in the Gaza Strip, at a time when American Secretary of State Antony Blinken is carrying out a regional tour focused on humanitarian aid to the population Palestinian under siege.
“Significant strikes are now underway” in the Gaza Strip and “they will continue tonight and in the days to come,” army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Sunday evening. According to him, Israeli troops operating in the Palestinian territory have cut it in two: “There is now Gaza South and Gaza North.” Internet and telephone lines were cut shortly before this new series of strikes.
The Hamas government claimed, for its part, that Israel was carrying out “intense bombings” around several hospitals, including the Al-Chifa establishment, the largest in Gaza. The Israeli army has once again accused the armed Islamist movement of using health facilities as a cover. The IDF released images it said showed Hamas members firing from a hospital in Gaza. The Palestinian movement’s government has categorically denied the allegations, accusing Israel of using them as a pretext to target hospital facilities.
According to the Hamas government, 9,770 people have been killed, half of them children, in bombings on the Gaza Strip since the start of the war. In almost a month, these strikes have also caused immense destruction and led, according to the United Nations (UN), to the displacement of 1.5 million people in the territory which had previously been under Israeli blockade since 2007.
Faced with this assessment, the directors of the main UN agencies, including Unicef, the World Food Program and the World Health Organization, issued a rare joint statement on Sunday to demand a “humanitarian ceasefire immediate” and the release of the hostages. “It’s been 30 days. Enough is enough. This must stop now,” they wrote in the statement.
Since mid-October, Israel has been ordering civilians to evacuate the north of the territory and head towards the South. “We are still allowing passage for civilians from northern Gaza and Gaza City to the south,” the Israeli army spokesperson said on Sunday. Between 300,000 and 400,000 people are still believed to be in the northern part of the territory.
Blinken warns against ‘forced travel’
During a new mission to the region, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank. The head of American diplomacy warned against the “forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and reaffirmed “the commitment of the United States to the delivery of vital humanitarian aid” to Gaza, where Israel has cut off deliveries water, electricity and food since October 9.
Mr. Blinken then traveled to Baghdad and Cyprus where he discussed the creation of “a maritime corridor,” proposed by the Eastern Mediterranean island to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.
For his part, Jordan’s King Abdullah II announced the airdrop early Monday morning of emergency medical aid to Gaza, intended for a Jordanian field hospital, adding on X (formerly Twitter): “C It is our duty to help our wounded brothers and sisters. »
In the south of the Gaza Strip, near Egypt, hundreds of thousands of people are massed. This border has partially opened since October 21 to allow humanitarian convoys to transit via the Rafah crossing point. A total of 451 trucks crossed the border on Saturday, according to the UN, which is calling for more aid.
Several hundred foreigners, dual nationals and injured people (1,100 according to the UN) have also been able to leave Gaza via this crossing towards Egypt in recent days. But these evacuations were suspended by Hamas, arguing that Israel refused to let injured Palestinians leave.
Daily exchanges of fire on the Israeli-Lebanese border
During his visit to Ramallah, Antony Blinken also called for an end to “extremist violence” in the West Bank, where more than 150 people, according to the Palestinian Authority, have been killed by fire from Israeli soldiers or settlers since on October 7.
Another area of ??tension, the Israeli-Lebanese border is the scene of daily exchanges of fire between the Israeli army and the Hezbollah movement in particular, an ally of Hamas.
On Sunday, four members of the family of a Lebanese journalist, including three children, who were in a car, were killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanese state media. The IDF claimed it “struck Hezbollah targets,” “in response to a missile attack that killed an Israeli civilian” in northern Israel.
Since October 7, 81 people have died on the Lebanese side, according to a count by Agence France-Presse, including 59 Hezbollah fighters. Six soldiers and two civilians were killed on the Israeli side.
More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, mostly civilians, in the October 7 attack by Hamas commandos who also kidnapped more than 240 people, according to Israeli authorities. Since then, Israel has vowed to “annihilate” the Palestinian movement and Benjamin Netanyahu has said he is opposed to any pause in the war until the hostages have been released. “Hamas has started a war against us because it wants to kill us all (…). Hamas made a mistake and will therefore be eliminated,” the Israeli Prime Minister posted again on Sunday evening on X.
