Gaza Strip | Despite growing hopes for a ceasefire, violence continues

Despite growing hopes for a ceasefire, violence continues in the Gaza Strip, where 35 people have been killed in the last 24 hours according to the Civil Defense of the Palestinian territory, ravaged by more than a year of war between Hamas and Israel.

The Islamist movement Hamas and two other Palestinian groups suggested on Saturday that an agreement for a truce in Gaza was “closer than ever”.

The fighting continues until then along the Palestinian coastal strip, hit in several places in the space of a few hours by airstrikes by the Israeli army.

One of them targeted a school building housing displaced people in the city of Gaza (North) during the night from Saturday to Sunday and left eight people dead, including four children, Civil Defense said.

Residents were busy on Sunday morning, amid the blood-stained rubble of the Moussa Ben Nousseir school, to recover the belongings that could still be used.

“A big explosion and screams woke us up,” said one of them, Abu Ali al-Jamal. Women and children were found torn to pieces and pieces of flesh everywhere. »

“Live normally”

The Israeli army claimed to have carried out “a targeted strike against Hamas terrorists who were operating” within the establishment “to prepare terrorist attacks against Israeli troops and the State of Israel”.

“Multiple measures had been taken in advance to reduce the risk of affecting civilians,” she said.

According to Civil Defense, another strike, targeting the home of a family in Deir al-Balah (Center), left 13 victims.

Wrapped in blankets, two bodies lay there on the dusty ground while residents searched the rubble, in the rising sun, looking for possible survivors.

“We lose loved ones every day,” said Naïm al-Ramlawi. I pray to God that a truce takes place quickly and that a solution is found so that we can live normally. »

The Israeli army indicated that it had targeted, “on the basis of intelligence”, a terrorist from Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian armed movement in the Gaza Strip, and that the mentioned number of 13 dead did not correspond with the information available to it. .

Gazan rescuers also reported three “unidentified” deaths in a strike near Rafah (South), and four others in Gaza City in a drone attack confirmed to AFP by a source. Israeli security.

On Sunday evening, the toll rose further, with seven deaths, according to Civil Defense, in a refugee camp in Khan Younes (South), where the Israeli army said it had targeted “a Hamas terrorist”.

The Pope persists and signs

This new violence pushed Pope Francis to condemn for the second time in two days the “cruelty” of the strikes against Gaza, despite protests from Israeli diplomacy, which had accused him the day before of using “double standards.” “.

“It is with pain that I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the machine-gunned children, of the bombing of schools and hospitals,” he said at the end of the Sunday Angelus prayer. .

The director of the Kamal Adwan hospital, one of only two still operational in the Gaza Strip, said on Sunday that the generators powering his establishment had been hit.

“The army is trying to target the fuel tank, which poses a big risk of fire,” denounced Hossam Abou Safia. Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army denied any strike towards the hospital.

Israel also strictly controls the arrival of international aid, essential for the 2.4 million Gazans, and has been accused on several occasions of committing “genocide” in Gaza, including before international justice at the initiative from South Africa – accusations that the Israeli authorities forcefully reject.

“Of the scant 34 trucks carrying food and water allowed into the northern Gaza governorate over the past two and a half months, deliberate delays and systematic obstruction by the Israeli military have fact that only 12 managed to distribute aid to starving Palestinian civilians,” the NGO Oxfam said in a statement on Sunday, sounding the alarm on the deterioration of the situation in the Palestinian territory. besieged.

The war was triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas in Israel on October 7, 2023 which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip.

That day, 251 people were kidnapped on Israeli soil, 96 of whom remain hostages in Gaza, including 34 declared dead by the army.

According to the latest report from local health authorities on Sunday, 45,259 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Gaza in the Israeli military campaign of reprisals since October 7, data deemed reliable by the UN.