New Israeli strikes targeted Rafah on Saturday February 10, where more than 1.3 million Palestinians now live, according to the United Nations (UN), the vast majority of them civilians having fled the war.
The latter are now massed, in desperate humanitarian conditions, in this city transformed into a gigantic encampment. After the city of Gaza then that of Khan Younes, Israel is now considering a ground operation in this city backed by the closed border with Egypt.
Hamas said on Saturday that an Israeli offensive on Rafah could cause “tens of thousands of deaths and injuries” in this town in southern Gaza, the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians that the Israeli prime minister announced want to evacuate.
The Palestinian Islamist movement added that it held “the American administration, the international community and the Israeli occupation” responsible for possible repercussions.
Many voices are being raised to ask Israel not to launch an offensive in Rafah. On Saturday, Germany sounded the alarm of a “humanitarian catastrophe predicted”. “Such an operation now without planning and thought in an area housing a million people would be a disaster,” the US State Department also declared this week.
The Hamas health ministry announced on Saturday a toll of 28,064 people killed, including 117 who died in the last twenty-four hours, and 67,611 people injured since the start of the war. This assessment could not be independently verified.
A Hamas official escaped an Israeli raid targeting him in Lebanon on Saturday, two Lebanese and Palestinian security sources announced to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The strike, which left two people dead, including a Hezbollah member, occurred in the village of Jadra, south of Beirut, some 40 kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border.
A Lebanese security source specified that the targeted official is named Bassel Saleh, and that he is “responsible for recruitment in the West Bank” within Hamas. “He escaped the assassination attempt but suffered burns to his back and was hospitalized,” she added. The Palestinian security source reported a “failed attempt to assassinate a senior official” of Hamas, at war against Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Local rescuers told AFP that the raid, which targeted a car, had cost the lives of two civilians. The pro-Iranian Hezbollah announced that one of its members, living in the locality, was among those killed.
The head of French diplomacy, Stéphane Séjourné, who visited the Middle East a week ago, gave an interview to the daily Ouest-France, in which he believes that “his duty” is to understand that “the trauma of Israelis is real.” “And it also says that the situation in Gaza is unjustifiable,” he said. “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is catastrophic today, and unacceptable in reality,” explains the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
France has been urging a lasting ceasefire for weeks. Like his predecessor Catherine Colonna, Stéphane Séjourné spoke during his trip of settler violence in the West Bank, “which has nothing to do with the situation in Gaza” and which must stop. Paris is currently preparing sanctions against these extremist settlers.
Ouest-France also questioned Stéphane Séjourné on the possibility of recognizing the Palestinian state, which could constitute a lever in the discussion of the two-state solution. “There are no taboos on this,” he said. “What matters is that this state comes into being and therefore that the conditions are met for it, including the security conditions for Israel,” he nevertheless clarified.
The Israeli army and internal security agency said on Saturday they had discovered a “tunnel entrance” of the Islamist movement Hamas under the headquarters of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) in the city of Gaza. UNRWA, which Israel accuses of being “totally infiltrated by Hamas”, responded that it had not occupied its headquarters since October 12.
“The entrance led to an underground terrorist tunnel that was an important Hamas military intelligence asset and passed beneath the building that serves as UNRWA’s main headquarters in the Gaza Strip,” the Israeli army and the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. Shin Beth in a statement. “The electrical infrastructure” of the tunnel – 700 meters long and located 18 meters underground – “was connected” to the agency’s headquarters, “indicating that UNRWA facilities supplied the tunnel with electricity,” they say . Documents and a weapons stash at the UN compound “confirmed that the offices had also been used by Hamas terrorists,” they added.
“We have not used this building since we left it and we are not aware of any activity that may have taken place there,” UNRWA responded. The building was last inspected in September 2023, she said in a statement. Israel’s accusations “merit an independent investigation, which is currently not possible given that Gaza is in an active war zone,” noted the UN agency.
Hind Rajab, a 6-year-old Palestinian girl, was found dead Saturday morning in Gaza City. Her disappearance almost two weeks ago, and her poignant calls recorded by emergency services during the hours she survived in a car, in the middle of an Israeli operation in Gaza City, had been widely relayed on social networks.
The remains of Hind and several members of his family were found in the car near a gas station in the Tal Al-Hawa neighborhood, after Israeli tanks left the area at dawn, AFP was told. his family, who accused the Israelis of killing them.
The bodies of the two Palestinian Red Crescent rescuers, who had been sent to rescue her, were also found on Saturday morning, in their ambulance, a few meters away, the relief company said in a statement.
“Hind Rajab was killed by the [Israeli] occupying forces along with everyone who was with her in a car,” the Hamas health ministry confirmed in a statement.