The Israeli army continued to shell the Gaza Strip on Saturday. At the same time, a key member of the war cabinet is expected to announce his resignation, amid disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In the early hours of Saturday, witnesses and AFP teams reported strikes in different sectors of the Gaza Strip, including the center of this micro-territory, the scene of violent bombardments in recent days.
One of these strikes, Thursday, on a school of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), left 37 dead according to a local hospital.
Accusing Hamas of having purposely used this school to launch attacks, the Israeli army said it had killed “17 terrorists” during this strike. Hamas, which declared that 14 children had died, denounced “false information”.
The head of Unrwa, Philippe Lazzarini, accused Israel of having struck “without prior warning” this school in Nousseirat which sheltered, according to him, “6,000 people displaced” by the fighting.
Israeli artillery fire was heard north of the city on Thursday, according to witnesses.
“Huge explosion”
Nearby in al-Bureij camp, six people were killed and several injured in an Israeli rocket attack targeting a house, according to doctors at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital.
Intense fighting between the army and Palestinian fighters is taking place in this camp and the neighboring al-Maghazi camp, according to witnesses.
In a statement, the Israeli army said it had struck “dozens of terrorist cells and infrastructure, including a tunnel located in a civilian structure” during operations in Bureij and Deir al-Balah.
In the north, five people were killed and seven injured in a nighttime aerial bombardment on a house in the Sheikh Radwane neighborhood of Gaza City, a doctor at the Baptist Hospital and Gaza Civil Defense said.
“We heard the sound of a huge explosion (…) We went to the site and discovered human remains of children, women and elderly people,” Mohammad Abou Nahl told AFP, a resident of Gaza.
In the south, artillery bombardments hit several areas of the town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where the Israeli army began ground operations in early May, according to local sources. The army said it was continuing “targeted operations” there and had discovered “large quantities of weapons”.
The conflict, since the beginning of October, has devastated a large part of the Gaza Strip and uprooted most of its 2.4 million inhabitants facing the risk of famine.
International aid, whose entry into Gaza is controlled by Israel, only reaches a trickle in the territory where the unemployment rate has reached a “staggering level of 79.1%”, according to the International Organization of Labor (ILO).
Blinken’s next visit
In Israel, Benny Gantz, the former army chief who became Benjamin Netanyahu’s political rival, is expected to announce his resignation on Saturday evening, according to the Israeli press.
He called a press conference at 8:40 p.m. in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv.
On May 18, he issued an ultimatum to Mr. Netanyahu, demanding the adoption, by June 8, of an “action plan” on the post-war in the Gaza Strip, failing which he would be “forced to resign from the government”, which he had joined after October 7.
His National Union party (center-right) tabled a bill on Thursday to dissolve Parliament and hold early elections, without much chance of succeeding at this stage because Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud (right) still counts a majority of deputies.
But Mr. Netanyahu also faces pressure from his far-right allies who have threatened to leave his government in the event of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
In the event of the fall of the government and early elections, Mr. Gantz is the favorite to form a coalition, while Israel is the subject of increased international pressure.
The country was notably notified on Friday of its addition to the UN “list of shame” on the rights of children in conflicts in a report expected by the end of June, announced its ambassador Gilad Erdan, saying ” disgusted” by the decision of Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
A diplomatic Source told AFP that Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another armed movement in the Gaza Strip, would also be added to this list.
While diplomatic efforts to achieve a truce stall, American Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected next week in Israel, Egypt, Qatar and Jordan, to “promote a ceasefire proposal” presented recently by President Joe Biden, according to Washington.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
