AFP
Deadly raids and fighting in Gaza, fears of war between Israel and Hezbollah
The Israeli army bombarded the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, where fighting pitted soldiers against Hamas in Rafah, after a new warning from the United States to Israel about the risk of a regional conflict in the event of a war against Lebanon’s Hezbollah. In the north of the Palestinian territory, devastated by nearly nine months of war, the Civil Defense said that three children and a woman were killed early Wednesday in an Israeli strike on a home in Beit Lahia. Tank fire was reported in Gaza City. Witnesses said fighting broke out between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian Hamas in the western city of Rafah in the south of the territory, where the Israeli army launched a ground offensive on May 7. Mohammad al-Moughayyir, an official with the Hamas-run Civil Defense in Gaza, told AFP that rescuers had recovered the bodies of “15 martyrs from various areas of Rafah city in the last few hours.” But the agency’s spokesman, Mahmoud Bassal, said Israeli shelling was less intense on Wednesday. “Only a few areas have been targeted and the rest of the territory is calm” for the moment, he said. The war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, has led to violence on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire are almost daily between Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian Islamist movement, and the Israeli army. – “All possible scenarios” – Even if the exchanges of fire have decreased in intensity in recent days, an escalation last week of attacks on both sides of the border and threats exchanged between Israel and Hezbollah have raised fears of a new war. “A war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with disastrous consequences for the Middle East,” warned US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, receiving his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, in Washington on Tuesday. “We are working closely to reach an agreement, but we must also prepareto all possible scenarios,” Gallant said. On June 19, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, an Islamist movement that wields considerable influence in Lebanon, warned that “no place” in Israel would be spared from his movement’s missiles, a day after the Israeli military announced that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” had been “validated.” Four days later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the “intense” phase of fighting in the Gaza Strip was coming to an end, saying that Israel could then “redeploy some forces north” to the border with Lebanon “for defensive purposes.” “It appears that Israel, which has devastated Gaza, is now setting its sights on Lebanon. “We see that the Western powers are supporting Israel behind the scenes,” accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday. Speaking of an “unpredictable situation,” Canada called on its nationals to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. – “Uproot Hamas” – Hezbollah opened the front with Israel in support of Hamas the day after the attack carried out by the Palestinian movement on October 7 in southern Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 116 are still being held hostage in Gaza, including 42 who died, according to the army. In retaliation, Israel launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has so far left 37,718 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led government. In Announcing that the “intense” phase of fighting, particularly in Rafah, was “about to end,” Benjamin Netanyahu reaffirmed that the war would continue in order to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. The goal,” according to Mr. Netanyahu, is “to recover the hostages” held in Gaza and to “uproot the Hamas regime.” – “Catastrophic level of hunger” – The war has plunged the Gaza Strip, besieged by Israel, into a humanitarian catastrophe and there is a “high and sustained risk” of famine in the territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, according to a report published Tuesday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), on which the UN agencies base their assessments. According to this report, 495,000 people are still suffering from hunger at a “catastrophic” level. According to the agency The UN refugee agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said that “every day, 10 children lose one or both legs on average” in Gaza. “Ten a day means around 2,000 children after more than 260 days of this brutal war,” the agency said. Humanitarian workers are not spared by the war. Médecins Sans Frontières reported on X that one of its members, Fadi al-Wadiya, was “killed along with five other people, including three children, in an attack in Gaza City while he was cycling to work.” The army confirmed that it had eliminated Fadi al-Wadiya, presenting him as a “major agent” of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian group fighting alongside Hamas. bur-cn/tp/sg
