An Israeli strike on the Gaza Strip left 28 dead on Thursday, according to rescuers, in a school housing displaced families, while the army announced that it had targeted a command center of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
After moving the heart of its military operations to Lebanon in mid-September, with a campaign of massive airstrikes followed by a ground offensive against Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, Israel has once again intensified its bombings on Palestinian territory. .
On Thursday, the Palestinian Red Crescent announced the death of 28 people in an attack on the Rafidah school in Deir el-Balah, in the center of the territory, which also left 54 injured.
The Israeli army claimed to have carried out a “precise” airstrike on “terrorists” in a command post “installed in buildings previously used” as a school.
AFP
This attack is the latest in a long series of Israeli strikes on schools converted into accommodation centers for displaced people in the Gaza Strip, where the war between Israel and Hamas was triggered a year ago by the unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement on Israeli soil.
The Israeli army accuses Hamas fighters of knowingly operating from schools or civilian infrastructure and of using the population as human shields, which Hamas denies.
Hamas targets targeted
Around thirty Hamas targets have been targeted since Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, according to the army, which has surrounded and bombarded the Jabalia sector in the north in recent days, claiming that Hamas, very weakened, was seeking to rebuild your abilities.
The attack carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1,206 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.
AFP
The war in Gaza has reduced entire sectors of the small, besieged territory to rubble and displaced almost all of its 2.4 million inhabitants.
According to the head of Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, “at least 400,000 people are trapped” in the Jabalia sector. “Northern Gaza: endless hell,” he said on Wednesday on X.
At least 42,065 Palestinians were killed, the majority civilians, in the Israeli offensive in Gaza, according to data from the Hamas government’s Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN.
“Destruction and suffering”
On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the Lebanese to “liberate their country” from Hezbollah, both a powerful political party and armed militia, and warned that Lebanon could suffer the same “destruction and suffering” as the Gaza Strip. .
In response, the United States warned Israel against any offensive in Lebanon that “resembles” Gaza.
AFP
The Israeli army, for its part, promised on Wednesday to fight “without respite” Hezbollah, supported by Iran, against whom it launched a ground offensive in southern Lebanon on September 30.
Israel seeks to distance Hezbollah from border areas and stop its rocket fire to allow the return of some 60,000 displaced residents to northern Israel.
Despite the death of several of its leaders, including its number one Hassan Nasrallah, in Israeli strikes, the Lebanese Islamist movement claims to resist Israeli incursions.
On Thursday, Hezbollah announced that it had “destroyed an Israeli tank which was advancing” towards the Lebanese town of Ras Naqoura, on the border, and claimed “a huge salvo of rockets” towards Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel.
The UN peacekeeping force (UNIFIL) announced that two peacekeepers had been targeted by fire in southern Lebanon.
AFP
Massive bombings
Israeli airstrikes continue during this time, particularly on the southern suburbs of Beirut, one of Hezbollah’s strongholds, devastating entire neighborhoods.
On Thursday, a cloud of smoke rose near the coastal town of Tyre, close to the border, according to AFP images. Lebanese news agency ANI reported strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon.
The army announced that it was continuing its “limited operations” against Hezbollah in the south of the country and had targeted “more than 110 targets” of the movement since the day before.
Bobre 2023 and the start of cross-border firefights between Israel and Hezbollah, more than 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon, including nearly 1 Bi200 since the first massive Israeli bombings on September 23, according to an AFP count based on official figures.
The coordinator of the UN humanitarian branch, assigned to Lebanon, Imran Riza, indicated in New York that the country was facing “one of the deadliest periods” in its history. He estimated the number of internally displaced people in Lebanon at 600,000, more than half of whom are children.
In a telephone interview on Wednesday, US President Joe Biden asked Benjamin Netanyahu to “minimize as much as possible the impact” of the war on civilians in Lebanon, particularly in Beirut, while “affirming Israel’s right to protect its citizens from Hezbollah,” according to the American presidency.
The two leaders also discussed Israel’s plan to strike Iran, in response to the missile attack launched by Tehran against Israeli territory on October 1. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promised a “deadly, precise and surprising” response.
