2023-12-05 13:06:23
Update
December 05, 2023
14:06
Israeli tanks returned to the largest city in the south of the Gaza Strip following intense bombardment. Hospitals are overwhelmed.
Israeli tanks are returned to Khan Younes, the main city in the south of the Gaza Strip and the refuge of many Palestinians who fled the north of the enclave. According to witnesses cited by AFP, armored vehicles took up positions on the outskirts of the city, while others pushed as far as the Hamad City residential complex. The Israeli army confirmed in the middle of the followingnoon that it was fighting on the ground in the city.
The Israeli army has been engaged since October 27 in a ground offensive in the north of the Palestinian territory. But following the seven day truce which ended on Friday, the army has extended since Sunday to the entire Gaza Strip.
“At least 60,000 additional people have been forced to move to already overcrowded UNRWA shelters.”
Since Saturday, she shells the south of the territory, and in particular Khan Younès. These strikes intensified further during the night from Monday to Tuesday, causing many deaths. Civilians are trapped in an increasingly reduced perimeterthe Rafah crossing point, on the Egyptian border further south, remaining closed.
LNasser hospital in Khan Younes, the largest in the southern Gaza Strip, was the scene of scenes of chaos following the overnight bombardments. According to Unrwa, the hospital overwhelmed by the influx of wounded, which lacks staff and supplies, houses more than a thousand patients as well as 17,000 displaced people.
The Israeli bombings were preceded by a new evacuation order from Khan Younes to Rafah. This one “caused panic, fear and anxiety“, declared Monday the director of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini.
“Moved” several times
“At least 60,000 additional people were forced to move to already overcrowded UNRWA shelters”estimated Philippe Lazzarini, specifying that the Israeli evacuation order “pushes people to gather in less than a third of the territory of the Gaza Strip”, or around a hundred square kilometers.
According to the UN, 1.8 million people, out of 2.4 million inhabitants, have already been displaced by the war in the Palestinian territory, where the strikes destroyed or damaged more than half of the homes.
For his part, James Elder, spokesperson for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), affirmed that he was “impossible” to implement secure zonesdesignated by Israel for civilians in the Gaza Strip to take refuge there and escape the fighting.
Israeli government spokesperson Eylon Levy warned on Tuesday that this “second stage” of the military operation would be “militarily difficult”.
Israel is willing to listen to “constructive feedback” on ways to protect the civilian population, he added, provided that advice does not contradict the military’s objective: eradicate Hamas.
“Hellish” scenario
Early this Tuesday, the Palestinian agency Wafa reported “several” dead in strike on Gaza City, further north. The armed wing of Hamas announced for its part that it had fired a salvo of rockets towards Beersheva, a town in the Negev desert, in southern Israel.
International organizations are alarmed at the risks for civilians in Gaza, where “all telecommunications services” are at a standstill, due to “a cut in the main fiber networks on the Israeli side”, according to the Palestinian telecoms group Paltel. “An even more hellish scenario is regarding to materialize, to which humanitarian operations may not be able to respond,” warned the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian Territories, Canadian Lynn Hastings.
Latest human assessments
Hamas announced on Tuesday that Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip had 16,248 dead since the start of the war on October 7. The Palestinian dead, the majority killed in airstrikes, are more than 70% of children (7,112) and women (4,885)said the statement from the Palestinian movement.
In Israelthe attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza caused 1,200 dead, mostly civilians, according to the authorities. According to the army, 137 hostages kidnapped in Israel on October 7 are also still being held in Gaza, following the release during the truce of 105 other hostages, including 80 in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Freezing assets of Hamas leader in Gaza
France has decreed the freezing for six months of the assets of the leader of the Palestinian movement Hamas in Gaza, Yahya Sinouarconsidered the architect of the October 7 attack once morest Israel, according to a decree published this Tuesday in the Official Journal.
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