Fierce fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas fighters in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday led to the further displacement of thousands of Palestinians.
The war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement in Israel on October 7, has not let up across the Palestinian territory, and has raised fears of a conflagration in Lebanon.
Israeli troops launched a ground offensive on May 7 in the town of Rafah (south), then presented by Israel as the last major bastion of Hamas.
But fighting has since intensified in several other regions, particularly in the north.
Since Thursday, Israeli forces have been carrying out an operation in Shujaiya, a district east of Gaza City, where they have eliminated “dozens” of fighters in 48 hours, the army said, reporting “close combat with terrorists.”
Two soldiers were killed and two others seriously injured in fighting in northern Gaza, according to the same source.
The armed branches of Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad indicated for their part that they were engaged in fighting with Israeli forces in the Shuyjaïya sector.
The Palestinian Civil Defense reported on Friday “numerous deaths” and the flight of “tens of thousands of civilians”, after a call by the army to evacuate the neighborhood.
– “Terrified” –
“In the streets, people were panicking, they were terrified (…) Everyone was leaving Shujaiya,” says Samah Hajaj, 42. “We don’t know why they (the Israeli soldiers, editor’s note) entered Shujaiya since they had already destroyed the houses there.”
On Friday night and Saturday morning, AFP journalists heard explosions, airstrikes and gunfire coming from this area.
Also in Gaza City, the Civil Defense said four bodies and six wounded had been recovered from the rubble of a building hit by an Israeli strike.
In the central Palestinian territory, residents cleared rubble in the Maghazi refugee camp after an overnight strike on a house that hit a medical center.
“The pharmacy, the ophthalmology department and the emergency department were completely destroyed,” said Tarek Qandeel, director of the center.
Further south, five bodies were discovered after a bombing of displaced people’s tents in the al-Mawasi sector, near Rafah, according to doctors.
The army is continuing operations in the latter town, which borders Egypt, saying it has eliminated “many terrorists” there.
Witnesses reported deaths and injuries among displaced people in the Shakush camp, west of Rafah.
The Hamas attack on October 7 in Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
– 32 hospitals damaged –
During the attack, 251 people were kidnapped, 116 of whom are still being held in Gaza, of whom 42 died, according to the army.
Israel has promised to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organisation, as do the United States and the European Union.
Its offensive on the Gaza Strip has so far left 37,834 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.
The war has caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the small, besieged Palestinian territory of 2.4 million people, more than half of whom have been displaced: water and food are in short supply and the health system is on its knees.
A total of 32 hospitals out of 36 in the Gaza Strip have been damaged since October 7, and of them 20 are now out of service, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
A UNRWA mission officer, Louise Wateridge, described living conditions in the Palestinian territory as “dire” on Friday, where humanitarian aid is arriving in dribs and drabs.
– “Bring them home” –
In Tel Aviv, thousands of demonstrators gathered on Saturday, as they do every week, to demand the return of the hostages and protest against the Prime Minister.
Among them is former hostage Noa Argamani, 26, who was freed on June 8 along with three other captives during an Israeli army operation. “Although I have returned home, we cannot forget the hostages who are still in Hamas captivity, and we must do everything in our power to bring them home,” she said.
On the diplomatic front, Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official based in Beirut, said Saturday that negotiations for an agreement with Israel on a ceasefire and the release of hostages had not led to any progress.
He said that his movement had received the latest American proposal for an agreement on a ceasefire on June 24, but that it brought “nothing new”.
A plan presented at the end of May by US President Joe Biden, proposed according to him by Israel, has so far remained a dead letter, with the protagonists sticking to intangible demands.
Benjamin Netanyahu wants to continue the war until the total defeat of Hamas and the release of all hostages, while the Palestinian movement demands a permanent ceasefire and a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Fears that the conflict could spread to Lebanon have recently been heightened by a verbal escalation between Israel and Hamas’ ally Hezbollah.
Since October 7, the two camps have exchanged fire almost daily in the border area, deadly violence having pushed thousands of residents on both sides of the border to flee.
