Find here our update on yesterday’s situation
The war between Israel and Hamas has left 37,718 dead in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to a report released Wednesday June 26 by the Ministry of Health administered by the Palestinian Islamist movement. At least sixty people have been killed in the last twenty-four hours, according to movement figures.
According to a count from Agence France-Presse (AFP), established from official data from the Jewish state, 1,195 Israelis have died since the Hamas attacks more than eight months ago.
New deadly bombings in the Gaza Strip
The Israeli army carried out new deadly bombings in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and fought Hamas in Rafah. In the north of the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly nine months of war, local civil protection services said three children and a woman were killed early Wednesday morning by an Israeli strike targeting a home in Beit Lahya. Tank fire was also reported in Gaza City.
Mohammad Al-Moughayyir, a civil defense official in Hamas-run Gaza, told AFP that rescuers had recovered the bodies of “fifteen martyrs from various areas of Rafah city in the last hours”.
According to witnesses, fighting took place between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian Hamas in the west of Rafah (South). But the spokesman for Palestinian civil protection in the Gaza Strip, Mahmoud Bassal, said Israeli bombardments were less intense on Wednesday. “Only a few areas have been targeted, and the rest of the areas of the territory are calm” For now.
Read also | Israel-Hamas war, day 263: in Gaza, civil defense announces the death of ten members of the Hamas leader’s family after an Israeli strike
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Fear of an offensive in Lebanon
Five people were injured Wednesday evening in an Israeli airstrike in southern Lebanon, according to the official Lebanese agency Ani, amid fears of an extension of the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
This strike on a two-story building in Nabatiyeh, one of the main cities in southern Lebanon, comes at a time when the two belligerents have resorted to increasingly bellicose rhetoric in recent days.
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In mid-February, seven civilian members of the same family were killed in a strike against the town of Nabatiyeh carried out in retaliation for an unclaimed rocket attack from Lebanon on a military base in northern Israel, which killed a soldier.
Since the start of the war on October 7 between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, which supports the Palestinian Islamist movement, has exchanged daily fire on the border with the Israeli army, and this violence has recently gained in intensity.
On Wednesday, after two relatively calm days, Israel again intensified its strikes on southern Lebanon, shelling around ten border localities, Ani said.
« Vers 22h (19h GMT)enemy aircraft [israéliens] carried out a violent airstrike on a building in the town of Nabatiyeh, completely destroying it”Ani said, adding that five people near the building were injured and taken to hospital.
Ani also reported 14 minor injuries. « par suffocation ». Clouds of smoke and dust covered the area as residents of damaged homes nearby called for help, the agency said.
Hezbollah, for its part, claimed six attacks against Israeli military positions on the border on Wednesday.
More than eight months of violence between Hezbollah and the Israeli army have left at least 481 dead in Lebanon, including a majority of Hezbollah fighters and 94 civilians, according to an AFP count. On the Israeli side, at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians were killed, according to Israel.
UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned Wednesday that an extension of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip to Lebanon would be “potentially apocalyptic”. “I see this as the spark that will ignite the powder”warned Mr. Griffiths, whose mandate ends at the end of the month, in front of journalists in Geneva.
“A war between Israel and Hezbollah could easily become a regional war, with disastrous consequences for the Middle East”warned American Defense Minister Lloyd Austin on Tuesday, receiving his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, at the Pentagon on Tuesday. “We are working closely to reach an agreement, but we must also prepare for all possible scenarios”a dit M. Gallant.
On June 19, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, which exercises major influence in Lebanon, warned that“no place” in Israel would not be spared by the missiles of his movement, the day after an announcement by the Israeli army according to which “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” had been “validated”.
Four days later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the phase « intense » fighting was coming to an end in the Gaza Strip, claiming that then Israel could “redeploy certain forces towards the north”on the border with Lebanon, “for defensive purposes”.
After Canada on Tuesday, Germany on Wednesday urged its nationals to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. “The current tensions in the border area with Israel could worsen at any time”, estimated the German Foreign Ministry. There is also “an increased risk of terrorist attacks” in the country, according to him, which could target Western foreigners or large hotels.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers On the border between Israel and Lebanon, tensions are increasing
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Israeli defense minister says “significant progress” has been made on weapons
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Wednesday that there had been “significant progress” on the issue of the transfer of American weapons to Israel, following discussions with officials in Washington. According to the White House, Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, “reaffirmed President Biden’s commitment to ensuring that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself militarily and confront its Iranian-backed adversaries”.
“High risk of famine”
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 Classification Framework (IPC), on which UN agencies are based.
According to the report, 495,000 people still suffer from hunger at a “catastrophic”. Furthermore, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), “Every day, ten children on average lose one or two legs” in Gaza. “Ten a day means around 2,000 children after more than two hundred and sixty days of this brutal war”underlined the agency.
Only 1,000 tons of aid sent to Gaza from Cyprus distributed, US officials say
Of the 7,000 tons of aid sent by sea from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip, only 1,000 tons have been distributed in the Palestinian territory, U.S. aid officials on the Mediterranean island said Wednesday. The other 6,000 tons, in a safe place, have not yet been distributed because of violence and the risk of looting, they told reporters.
“I have never seen such a difficult or complex environment” for humanitarians, said Doug Stropes of USAID, the US agency for international development. Cypriot Foreign Minister Konstantinos Kombos said that despite the difficulties the delivery of aid would continue. “We are continuing our efforts”did he declare.
For her part, the American ambassador to Cyprus, Julie Fisher, declared that her country was committed to using “all possible means to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people who face catastrophic levels of food insecurity”.
