2023-10-10 21:09:24
Israel announced on Tuesday that it had partially regained control of its border with the Gaza Strip, under siege and shelled by Israeli raids, after four days of a war against Hamas which has already left thousands dead.
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Hamas, in power since 2007 in the Gaza Strip and sworn enemy of Israel, launched its offensive on Saturday at dawn, in the middle of Shabbat, the Jewish weekly rest, and 50 years and one day after the start of the war Israeli-Arab from 1973.
He said he fired 5,000 rockets into Israel while his fighters used explosives and bulldozers to breach the barrier separating Gaza from Israeli territory, attacking military positions and civilians in the streets.
Aboard vehicles, boats and even motorized paragliders, the fighters seized Israeli military equipment and infiltrated urban areas of Israel such as Ashkelon, Sderot and Ofakim, around twenty kilometers from the Strip. Gaza, a poor enclave populated by 2.3 million inhabitants.
Israel’s response
“What Hamas is going to experience will be difficult and terrible (…), we are going to change the Middle East,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Monday, calling for the formation of a “government of national unity.”
The Israeli army, which counted more than 3,000 Palestinian shots, launched Operation “Iron Sabre” on Saturday, carrying out airstrikes and destroying buildings presented as Hamas “command centers” in Gaza.
More than 187,500 Palestinians have been displaced inside Gaza because of the strikes, according to the UN.
Israel has imposed a “total siege” on the Gaza Strip since Monday and announced that it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers in the south of the country who fought against infiltrated fighters. He also strives to save Israelis taken hostage by Hamas.
Furthermore, the Israeli authorities decided to evacuate residents from around Gaza and ordered the “immediate” shutdown of the water supply to the Gaza Strip, or 10% of the territory’s annual water consumption.
How many dead and missing?
In total, the war has already left more than 3,000 dead on both sides, civilians, Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters.
In Israel, more than 900 people have been killed, according to authorities. NGOs said more than 100 people were killed on a single kibbutz in southern Israel and that some 250 people were killed at a music festival attended by hundreds of Israelis near Gaza.
On the Palestinian side, 830 people died, according to local authorities. Hamas announced that two of its senior officials had been killed by Israeli strikes.
The Israeli army also announced on Tuesday that it had recovered the bodies of 1,500 Hamas fighters in areas neighboring Gaza.
Israel has acknowledged that nearly 150 Israeli civilians and soldiers were kidnapped. Many foreign nationals are missing.
Four of the hostages held by Hamas were killed in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian movement said.
Eight Palestinian journalists have also died in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since Saturday.
What Hamas says
Hamas threatened Monday evening to execute Israeli hostages in response to strikes on the Gaza Strip.
“Every time our people are targeted without warning, it will result in the execution of one of the civilian hostages… The enemy does not understand the humanitarian and ethical language, so we will speak to them a language that they understand”, he threatened.
The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that they had launched the offensive to “put an end to the crimes of the occupation”. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, annexed the eastern part of Jerusalem and has imposed a strict blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2007.
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“We are on the verge of a great victory,” said Ismaïl Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, at the start of the offensive.
The movement called “resistance fighters in the West Bank” busy as well as “the Arab and Muslim nations” to join his fight.
A “second front”?
“Deeply concerned”, the United States warned Lebanese Hezbollah on Monday evening not to open a “second front” against Israel, after the pro-Iranian movement, Israel’s bête noire, bombed two Israeli barracks in response to the death of three of its members by Israeli bombings on a border area in southern Lebanon.
Earlier on Monday, “Al-Quds Brigades”the military branch of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claims to support Hamas, claimed responsibility for an infiltration operation into Israeli territory from Lebanon.
The Israeli army, for its part, indicated that it had “killed several armed suspects who had infiltrated Israeli territory from Lebanese territory.”
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On Tuesday, Hamas’ military wing claimed to have fired three salvos of rockets from southern Lebanon towards Israel.
The reactions
US President Joe Biden called Hamas attacks a “pure evil”, reporting news “upsetting” of “babies killed, entire families massacred”.
The United States is ready to deploy “additional resources” to support Israel, Mr. Biden said, with Washington having already sent them military aid and brought their carrier strike group in the Mediterranean closer.
NGOs, for their part, warned about the health situation in the Gaza Strip, calling for a humanitarian corridor to support the medical response, while the Ministry of Health in the enclave warned that the lack of supplies and medicines would lead to a “catastrophic situation”.
The UN has recalled that the total siege of the Gaza Strip by Israel is “forbidden” by international humanitarian law and the European Union has decided to maintain its development aid intended for the Palestinian people.
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Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar say they are increasing contacts to put an end to the escalation.
Iran has placed itself at the forefront of supporting the Hamas offensive, while rejecting accusations of its involvement.
The head of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, assured that his organization rejected violence “on both sides”. Arab foreign ministers will meet on Wednesday at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.
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