2023-05-13 21:20:24
A ceasefire is in sight on Saturday evening, May 13, after five days of missile and rocket battles between the Israeli army and Palestinian armed groups in Gaza that have left thirty-five dead since Tuesday.
Egypt, a traditional mediator between the belligerents, has obtained the agreement of the parties on a truce starting as early as 10 p.m. (9 p.m. in Paris), announced Mohammad Al-Hindi, a senior official of the Islamic Jihad militant group in Gaza, to the Al Kahera Wal Nas channel.
Questioned by Agence France-Presse (AFP), an Israeli government official refused to comment at the end of a day marked by new violence. And several rockets were still fired around 9:15 p.m. from Gaza, according to AFP journalists.
For the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, time passed to the rhythm of Israeli airstrikes while in the Israeli areas bordering the fence encircling the thin littoral territory, the inhabitants were fixed on that of the sirens of anti-rocket alerts, grounded in shelters.
Deadly escalation
Shortly before the announcement of the truce, Israeli General Herzi Halevi, Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was pleased that Israel had “achieved important goals throughout this campaign [qui] have only increased both in number and in scope.and ” the shots [de roquettes] of the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad [avait permis à l’armée] to further push the advantage”.
Earlier, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, had announced the continuation of their “missile fire on cities” israeli “in the face of continued assassinations and bombings” Israelis.
The deadly escalation, the most violent between Gaza and Israel since August 2022, began on Tuesday with air raids that allowed Israel to eliminate three military commanders of the Islamic Jihad, a movement also described as “terrorist” by the United States and the European Union.
In Gaza, a territory under Israeli blockade since the Islamist movement Hamas took power in 2007, the Interior Ministry accused Israel of concentrating its strikes “on civilian targets and residential buildings”and called on local and international human rights organizations to ” lobby [sur Israël] for him to stop [ses] crimes [relevant] from international justice ».
2,000 Israeli protesters
In Tel Aviv, more than 2,000 Israeli demonstrators marched on Saturday evening. Many of them waved Palestinian flags or signs “Stop the War”according to AFP journalists on the spot.
According to the Israeli army, a Palestinian rocket fell in the afternoon on an Israeli agricultural area in Shokeda, less than ten kilometers from the Gaza Strip, injuring a Palestinian worker whose death was later announced to the hospital. The death brings to thirty-four the number of Palestinians killed in clashes between Israel and Gaza since Tuesday. On the Israeli side, an octogenarian was killed Thursday in Rehovot, in central Israel.
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AFP journalists noted on Saturday new damage caused by Israeli strikes on residential areas in Beit Lahya and Gaza, in the north of the strip, or Deir el-Balah, in the center.
In a statement, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said “demanded UN intervention to end Israeli crimes”.
Among the Palestinians killed are six military commanders of the Islamic Jihad, fighters of this movement, and others of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), another armed group.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has confirmed the death of at least thirteen Palestinian civilians, including seven minors. The Israeli army claims that four civilians, including three minors, were killed by Palestinian rockets that fell on the Gaza Strip.
The army, said to have touched since Tuesday 371 “terrorist targets” and that more than 1,230 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel, of which more than 370 were intercepted by the air defense system, which normally fires only when rockets threaten populated areas.
AFP journalists saw two busloads of foreigners employed by international organizations being evacuated from Gaza in the afternoon.
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