After 26 days of war between Israel and the Hamas jihadist group, Egypt opened its door to the Gaza Strip for the first time this Wednesday to allow the exit of both foreigners or Palestinians with dual nationality as well as seriously injured people. While the number of trucks with water, medicine and food destined for the south of the Palestinian enclave increases, armed clashes and attacks intensify in the north. After suffering 16 casualties in their ground offensive, Israeli forces have reached Gaza City, the great fiefdom – especially underground – of the armed wing of Hamas.
The opening of Rafah gave more than hope to almost a hundred seriously injured people and some 335 citizens with dual nationality and foreigners (among them the Spanish anesthetist from Doctors Without Borders, Raúl Incertis) who were awaiting the green light from Cairo to leave an strip that suffers its worst weeks in decades. The departure to Egypt, which will be repeated this Thursday, has been possible above all thanks to the mediation of Qatar, headquarters of the Hamas leadership, and the United States, Israel’s main ally.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is receiving some criticism in his country for having given in to President Joe Biden’s demand – which on the other hand he could not reject if he intends to maintain his enormous support – to allow the entry of humanitarian aid to the entity controlled by Hamas taking into account that civilians also participated in the massacre on October 7 and that the International Red Cross has not yet visited the more than 200 kidnapped people, including dozens of children, women and the elderly.
The World Health Organization (WHO) applauded the opening of Rafah, but denounced the conditions of Gazan hospitals and warned that thousands of people need to receive urgent health services. “Among those most in need are thousands of seriously injured civilians, many of them children,” the WHO said, emphasizing the need for fuel. His absence, warned the Ministry of Health of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), may force the main hospital in Gaza to stop operating this Thursday. “Only the emergency, surgery, kidney, intensive care and incubator departments operate at Shifa Hospital,” he said, while Israel denounced that Hamas stole fuel from health centers.
Jabalia was once again the scene of fighting and attacks today, after dozens of Palestinians were killed in an Israeli bombing on Tuesday. Hamas reported a second attack with numerous deaths in this refugee camp located in northern Gaza. For the head of UN Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, “it is the latest atrocity to hit the population of Gaza, where the fighting has entered an even more terrifying phase.”
According to the Ministry of Health of the Hamas Government, more than 8,700 Palestinians have died in the military offensive initiated after the jihadist attack on 7-O that caused more than 1,400 deaths in Israel. Beyond asking for international intervention “to stop the aggression,” the spokesman for the armed wing of Hamas, Abu Obeida, announced that “seven hostages died this Tuesday in the Israeli massacre in the Jabalia refugee camp, three of them with passports.” foreign”.
In conversation with foreign media, military spokesman Daniel Hagari reiterated that they attacked a Hamas commander, Ibrahim Biari, causing “his death and that of dozens of terrorists” while pointing out that the action also caused the collapse of “the infrastructure.” underground that Hamas intentionally built under residential buildings so that we have the dilemma of attacking it or letting it attack us from there. “For two weeks we have been asking the inhabitants of Gaza by all means to go to the safest area in the south,” he concluded, denouncing that “200 terrorists who participated in the 7-O massacre hid that same day in the Hospital Shifa.”
Hamas does not release images of its armed wing on the ground nor does it detail the number of its casualties, which Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant put in the thousands in a press conference in which he accused Hamas troops of coming out of tunnels. under hospitals and schools in Gaza and attack them.
The death of 16 soldiers in the last day confirmed Israel’s initial fears about tunnels, anti-tank missiles and explosive devices. In the ground incursion, supported by massive artillery and Air Force fire, the Tsahal has made use of the information obtained during the interrogations of those detained on October 7. The tactic is to force the militants to expose themselves and then attack them by land or air. In the army, it is believed that he has managed to neutralize all the suicide drones of the fundamentalist group and kill the commander of the anti-tank missile unit.
Hamas, for its part, acts like a guerrilla that, aware of the military superiority of its enemy, seeks to find its weak points. “Israel has no place in our land. We must eliminate that country because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe for the Arab and Islamic nation,” Ghazi Hamed, one of the Hamas spokespersons, told the Lebanese channel LBC. After openly advocating for “the annihilation” of Israel and promising that they will carry out an attack similar to that of 7-O “a second, third and fourth time”, he admits the price: “We are called a nation of martyrs and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs” .