2023-12-02 02:50:22
The Israeli army bombs the Gaza Strip on Saturday for a second consecutive day since the expiration of a truce with the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas which allowed the release of hostages and the delivery of emergency aid.
Updated yesterday at 9:50 p.m.
Adel ZAANOUN with Delphine MATTHIEUSSENT in Jerusalem Agence France-Presse
What there is to know
The truce between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement expired Friday morning, and hostilities resumed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused Hamas of having “violated the agreement” and “fired rockets” towards Israel. Islamic Jihad, Gaza’s other major Islamist movement, claimed responsibility for firing rockets into Israel on Friday morning. The resumption of Israeli bombings in the Gaza Strip has left “more than 100 dead,” according to the Ministry of Health in the territory controlled by Hamas. From the first explosions on Friday morning, thousands of residents of the small Palestinian territory returned to hospitals and schools that had become makeshift camps for the displaced. The seven days of truce allowed the release of 80 Israeli hostages, women and children, and 240 Palestinian prisoners, also women and minors. The death of five hostages was confirmed by Israel.
The Health Ministry of Hamas, the movement in power in this besieged Palestinian territory, reported nearly 200 deaths in these Israeli strikes on Friday.
“We are currently striking Hamas military targets across the entire Gaza Strip,” Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli army spokesman, said early Saturday.
Israel and Hamas blame each other for the end of the truce, which allowed the release of around a hundred hostages in exchange for that of 240 Palestinian prisoners as well as the acceleration of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip .
PHOTO ARAFAT BARBAKH, REUTERS
A Palestinian woman injured in an Israeli strike has her eyes covered to stop the bleeding as she receives help at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younes, southern Gaza Strip, December 1.
Hamas said it had “proposed an exchange of prisoners and elderly people” among the hostages, as well as the handover to Israel of the bodies of captives “who died in Israeli bombings”.
The Israeli army also confirmed late Friday the death of five hostages in the Gaza Strip, giving their names, adding that it had “informed the families of their deaths.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the Islamist movement of having “violated the agreement” and “fired rockets” towards Israel. And his government promised Hamas “the worst beating”.
PHOTO JACK GUEZ, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Rockets fired from Gaza towards Israel.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he “deeply regrets” the resumption of clashes in Gaza which “only shows how important it is to have a genuine humanitarian ceasefire”.
Hamas and Hezbollah
On Israel’s northern border, exchanges of fire have resumed between the Israeli army and the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas. Hezbollah deplored the death of two of its members due to Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon, where a civilian was also killed. Hezbollah has claimed responsibility for attacks once morest Israel.
According to Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), an NGO which has a vast network of sources in Syria, the Israeli air force struck “targets of the Hezbollah.”
And, according to the Palestinian Wafa agency, Israeli forces carried out night operations in different sectors of the occupied West Bank, where Hamas also has support.
PHOTO MOHAMMED ABED, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
People mourn the deaths of war victims in Rafah following the resumption of hostilities.
The Israel/Hamas war was triggered by an unprecedented attack carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7, which left 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians, according to authorities.
In retaliation, Israel carried out devastating bombings once morest the Palestinian territory and launched a ground offensive on October 27. According to the Hamas government, more than 15,000 people, including more than 6,150 under the age of 18, have died in Israeli strikes since October 7.
“If violence resumes at this scale and intensity, we can assume that hundreds more children will be killed and injured every day,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
“To all, to our country”
After the release of 110 hostages since the start of the conflict, including 105 during the truce, mostly women and minors, there remain 136 hostages in Gaza in the hands of Hamas and other affiliated groups, Israeli authorities said.
PHOTO SHIR TOREM, ARCHIVES REUTERS
A poster calling for the release of Eden Yerushalmi
On Friday, relatives and supporters of the hostages gathered in a Tel Aviv square, now known as Hostages Square, with Torah scrolls, representing the number of hostages remaining in Gaza.
“We were given a chance that people would come out, join us and resume their previous lives,” testified, moved, Ilan Zecharya, the uncle of the hostage Eden Yerushalmi, aged around twenty. . “From everyone, from our country, we ask for a new system” for the “liberation of everyone”, he implored.
The day following a visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the United States, Israel’s main allies, remained “focused” on the release of the hostages.
“We continue to work with Israel, Egypt and Qatar to get the truce back on track,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said. Qatar, the emirate which announced the truce, called on the international community to act because the resumption of bombings “exacerbates the humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.
” Human being ”
The truce had offered respite to the inhabitants of Gaza and allowed an acceleration of humanitarian aid, but this flow, although described as very insufficient by the UN, has now dried up.
PHOTO SAID KHATIB, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Israeli strike in Rafah
The needs are immense in the territory already under an Israeli blockade, where more than half of the territory’s housing has been damaged or destroyed and 1.7 million people have been displaced by the war according to the UN.
PHOTO MAHMUD HAMS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
An Israeli strike in Khan Younes destroyed this house.
The health situation is deteriorating, with the World Health Organization (WHO) describing 111,000 cases of acute respiratory infection and 36,000 cases of diarrhea in children under five years old among the displaced in Gaza.
“There are bombings everywhere, we have no food, no water, no clothes. The stores are empty, it’s cold, the border post is closed” with Egypt, despairs Marwa Saleh, 47, who arrived in Khan Younes (south) following being displaced from Gaza city (north).
And added: “When will the world see us as human beings? My family and I are civilians, we have nothing to do with this war.”
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