Israeli strikes on Thursday left dozens dead and missing in the Gaza Strip, ravaged by more than a year of war between the Israeli army and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
Triggered on October 7, 2023 after an attack of unprecedented scale by Hamas on Israeli soil, the war in Gaza spread to Lebanon, where the pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah opened a “support front” for the Palestinian movement against Israel.
After discussions in Beirut with a view to obtaining a truce between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, the American president’s special envoy, Amos Hochstein, is due to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on Thursday.
In the Gaza Strip, Civil Defense announced Thursday the death of 22 people killed overnight by an Israeli strike on a house in Sheikh Radwan, a neighborhood in Gaza City.
“Here there is a martyr and a headless body. We don’t know who it is until now,” Moataz Al-Arouqi, a Palestinian from the neighborhood, told AFPTV.
Another strike that occurred around midnight in the area of Beit Lahia and Jabalia left dozens dead and missing, according to medical sources.
“Bodies arrive at the hospital in tatters,” Hossam Abou Safiyeh, director of the Kamal Adwa establishment, near which the strike took place, told AFP, adding that the health system was “on the ground in the northern Gaza.
International arrest warrants
The war in the Palestinian territory was launched in response to the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 in Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data, including hostages killed or died in captivity.
That day, 251 people were kidnapped. In total, 97 remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.
In retaliation, the Israeli army launched a massive bombing campaign followed by a ground offensive in Gaza, which left at least 44,056 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas Ministry of Health, considered reliable. by the UN.
Israel’s ally the United States on Wednesday blocked the UN Security Council from calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, despite international calls for an end to the conflict.
On Thursday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants “for crimes against humanity and war crimes” against Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar immediately accused the ICC of having “lost all legitimacy” with its arrest warrants, which he deemed “absurd”.
The Court issued another for Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s armed wing considered one of the masterminds of the October 7 attack, whom the Israeli army announced it had killed this summer but whose death was not has not been confirmed by the movement.
“Total cessation of aggression”
In Lebanon, Israel and Hezbollah entered into open war on September 23 after a year of cross-border fire, and the Israeli army has been carrying out incursions into the south of the country since September 30.
Israel says it wants to distance Hezbollah from the border regions of southern Lebanon to allow the return of some 60,000 residents of northern Israel displaced by the movement’s fire. In Lebanon, tens of thousands of residents have also been displaced.
The American ambassador to Beirut, Lisa Johnson, presented last Thursday to the Lebanese Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, and the head of Parliament, Nabih Berri, a 13-point plan providing for a 60-day truce and the deployment of the army in southern Lebanon.
In this context, envoy Amos Hochstein went to Beirut on Tuesday where he declared that a solution was “within reach” but that it was up to the belligerents to “decide”.
Israel “cannot impose its conditions on us”, warned the leader of Hezbollah, Naïm Qassem, on Wednesday, saying he demanded “a total end to the aggression” in Lebanon.
Mr. Netanyahu warned on Monday that Israel “will carry out military operations” against Hezbollah even in the event of a truce.
One dead in Israel
Meanwhile, Israeli bombings continue in Lebanon on Hezbollah strongholds. New strikes targeted the southern suburbs of Beirut on Thursday morning, shortly after a call from the Israeli army to evacuate.
The Israeli army spokesman said it had targeted “command centers and military structures” of Hezbollah, which claimed to have launched missiles at an air base near Ashdod, its first attack in the southern Israel.
Several sectors of southern Lebanon were also targeted, notably the town of Khiam, located about six kilometers from the border, where clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces had broken out the day before, according to the Lebanese National Information Agency. .
On Thursday morning, the army’s Arabic-language spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, issued calls to evacuate residents of three areas near the southern city of Tyre.
Israeli emergency services, for their part, announced that a 30-year-old man had died after being injured following projectile fire in the Galilee, in northern Israel.
Violence between Israel and Hezbollah has caused at least 3,558 deaths in Lebanon since October 2023, most since the start of the massive Israeli bombing campaign on September 23. On the Israeli side, 82 soldiers and 47 civilians were killed in 13 months.
