The Israeli army on Sunday focused its operations against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the cities of Gaza and Rafah, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu describing it as a “difficult fight”.
Updated yesterday at 12:45 p.m.
Nearly nine months after the start of the war, triggered by an unprecedented attack by Hamas against Israel on October 7, Mr. Netanyahu says he wants to continue it until the elimination of the Palestinian movement in Gaza and the release of all the hostages kidnapped during the attack.
This war, which caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged and devastated Palestinian territory, also raises fears of a conflict between Israel and Lebanese Hezbollah after an increase in attacks on both sides of the Israeli-Lebanese border.
In the past 24 hours, 43 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip, the health ministry of the Hamas government that seized power in the Palestinian territory in 2007 said on Sunday.
According to witnesses, numerous Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City in the north, as well as Rafah and Khan Younes in the south.
PHOTO EYAD BABA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
In Khan Younes
While the army announced in January that it had dismantled Hamas’s command structure in the north of the territory, its soldiers launched an operation on Thursday in Shujaiya, a district of Gaza City, under air cover and artillery. The bombings and fighting continued on Sunday for the 4e consecutive day.
“People are trapped”
“People are trapped in their homes in Shujaiya. It is difficult to leave the neighborhood under the bombardments,” testified Siham Al-Shawa, 50. “Our life has become hell, we don’t know where to go to protect ourselves, they are bombing everywhere. »
PHOTO OMAR AL-QATTAA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians evacuated Shujaiya on June 27.
The army announced that it had “eliminated several terrorists, discovered weapons” and “struck dozens of terrorist infrastructures” in Shujaiya.
Between 60,000 and 80,000 people, according to the UN, fled the east and northeast of Gaza City after the army ordered them to evacuate on Thursday.
In southern Gaza, Israeli soldiers launched a ground offensive on May 7 in the town of Rafah, then presented by Israel as the last major Hamas stronghold.
Six people were killed in a strike that hit a house in Rafah and artillery fire rocked parts of the city, according to witnesses and medics.
“Underground Combat”
“Our forces are operating in Rafah, Shujaiya, all over the Gaza Strip,” Benjamin Netanyahu told the weekly government meeting on Sunday, a week after saying that the “intense phase” of the war was coming to an end.
“Dozens of terrorists are eliminated every day. It is a difficult fight that we are waging on the ground, sometimes hand-to-hand, and also underground,” he said, referring to the tunnels dug underground by Hamas during its years in power.
The attack carried out by Hamas on October 7 in southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of 251 people kidnapped during the attack, 116 are still held hostage in Gaza, among whom 42 are dead, according to the army.
In retaliation, Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States and the European Union.
Its major offensive on the small Palestinian territory has so far killed 37,877 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry of the Hamas-run Gaza government.
Attacks by Israel and Hezbollah
The war has caused massive population displacements in the territory where some 2.4 million people are under siege in conditions described as “disastrous” by the UN.
Humanitarian aid is arriving in dribs and drabs and water and food are in short supply. Thousands of children suffer from malnutrition according to the World Health Organization (WHO) which, in mid-June, reported “32 deaths attributed to malnutrition, including 28 among children under the age of five.” .
Fears of the conflict spreading to Lebanon have recently increased.
On June 19, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, a powerful movement allied with Hamas and backed by Iran, warned that “no place” in Israel would be spared in the event of war, after the army claimed to have “validated” “operational plans” for an offensive in Lebanon.
On Sunday, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for new attacks on Israeli military positions on the border, while a Lebanese media outlet reported Israeli bombardments on southern Lebanon.
