2023-10-20 03:24:00
Shortly before Israel’s impending ground offensive once morest the Islamist Hamas attackers in the Gaza Strip, the struggle for urgently needed help for the population is beginning to move. According to Israeli information, the relief supplies stored in Egypt at the Rafah border crossing are expected to arrive in the Gaza Strip by Saturday at the latest. Israel announced an imminent ground offensive. US President Joe Biden wants to ask Congress for an aid package with “unprecedented help for Israel”.
Israel’s Defense Minister Joav Galant has told ground troops massed on the Gaza border that they would soon see the Palestinian coastal strip “from the inside.” “You see Gaza from a distance now, soon you will see it from the inside. The order will come,” he said, according to a statement from his office.
“We will ensure that other hostile actors in the region know that Israel is stronger than ever and prevent this conflict from expanding,” Biden said in a speech to the nation on Thursday evening (local time). Israel and the Palestinians alike deserve to live in security, dignity and peace. “We must not give up on peace. We must not give up on a two-state solution,” Biden said. However, the people in the region cannot currently even dream of peace.
Experts warn of bloody urban warfare if Israel sends ground troops into the densely populated Gaza Strip on the Mediterranean as expected. After the devastating terrorist attacks by Hamas, Israel wants to eliminate the military capabilities and rule of the Islamist organization. More than 1,400 people have fallen victim to Hamas attacks in Israel and more than 200 people have been kidnapped by them in the Gaza Strip. According to Israeli media reports, there are almost 30 children and young people among them. 100 to 200 people are missing.
Since then, Israel’s air force has been attacking targets in the Gaza Strip. According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, 3,785 people have died in the Gaza Strip since October 7th. According to the Israeli army, another Hamas member involved in the terrorist attacks was killed on Friday night. Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at Tel Aviv and central Israel late on Thursday evening.
According to the UN, around a million residents of the northern Gaza Strip have fled to the southern part in the past few days. Israel’s army, which had called for this to happen in order to avoid civilian casualties if the fighting escalated, spoke of around 600,000 people. In the south is the Rafah crossing on the border with Egypt. Dozens of trucks carrying humanitarian supplies are piled up on the Egyptian side.
The first deliveries would arrive in Gaza “tomorrow, at the latest the day following tomorrow,” said Israeli army spokesman Arye Sharuz Shalicar on the “RTL Direkt” program on Thursday evening. The state-affiliated Egyptian TV channel Al Kahera News had previously reported that the border crossing would be opened on Friday for aid deliveries to the sealed-off Palestinian territory. The Rafah crossing is the only non-Israeli-controlled entrance to the Gaza Strip. Egypt had previously announced “permanent” access for aid deliveries.
“We need quick, unhindered access for humanitarian aid. We need food, water, medicine and fuel immediately,” wrote UN Secretary-General António Guterres on the X platform (formerly Twitter) on Friday night. He is in Egypt to talk to the government regarding opening the border crossing.
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused the USA and its allies of failing to criticize Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip. Tom Porteous, HRW deputy program director, asked Thursday where “the clear condemnation of the cruel tightening of the 16-year closure of the Gaza Strip” was. This amounts to “collective punishment, a war crime.”
Meanwhile, the Israeli military also attacked pro-Iranian Hezbollah positions in Lebanon and suspected terrorists on Friday night. In response to shelling by the Shiite militia on Wednesday, the army attacked Hezbollah observation posts, among other things, the military said. In addition, a fighter jet hit three people who tried to fire rockets towards Israel. It was unclear whether there were any injuries or deaths.
Since the terrorist attacks on Israel by the Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas and Israel’s counterattacks on the Gaza Strip, there have been regular incidents on the border between Israel and Lebanon in recent days. There are international fears that Hezbollah might intervene more intensively in the Gaza conflict and force a second, northern front on Israel. Hezbollah has close ties to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Because of the current situation in the Middle East, Chancellor Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) and Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens) have convened the federal government’s crisis cabinet for Friday (8 a.m.). Topics include the current situation, Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel and the resulting consequences – as well as the security situation in Austria, the government announced to the APA. The heads of the intelligence services will inform the federal government regarding the current situation at the Defense Ministry’s situation center.
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