2023-10-15 22:25:40
The war in Gaza enters its second week and Israel intensifies bombings that have already left more than 2,300 dead, a figure higher than the casualties caused in the almost two months of the 2014 offensive. Benjamin Netanyahu calls for revenge after the bloody terrorist attack in Hamas left at least 1,400 Israelis dead and more than a hundred kidnapped and is willing to “destroy” the Islamist group in a “long and hard” war. The brutality of the Israeli bombings and the expected entry by land of the troops led Iran to make a move and the Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, yesterday raised the tone of the last few days and declared that “no one can guarantee control of the situation and the non-expansion of the conflict. He accused the Jewish state of committing “war crimes.”
This entry of soldiers by land is “a responsibility, we must go to the places where Hamas prepares and plans its attacks. We have to hit them everywhere and each of his commanders, we have to destroy his infrastructure. In a word, we must win,” declared the head of the army, General Herzi Halevi, during the visit he made to the troops at the gates of Gaza. Israel intensified attacks from the air and sea and evacuated civilians from towns near the Strip such as Sderot. The entire area surrounding Gaza is now a large military field of operations.
Israel attacks Gaza with an eye on the north as Iran’s words have come true in recent days in Syria and, above all, Lebanon. Hezbollah, a Shiite militia created by the Islamic Republic, launched missiles one more day and the Al Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, also attacked Israeli soil with twenty rockets from the neighboring country. These actions left one dead and several injured. The Army responded immediately and imposed a four-kilometer security perimeter on the 120-kilometer border.
At the moment the clashes are specific and limited to the border, but Israel is aware that Hezbollah has a much more powerful arsenal than that of Hamas, with the capacity to strike throughout the country, and that its fighters have been strengthened after the twelve years of experience in Syria, where they are a key support for Bashar Al Assad. Another factor that worries Israel is the network that Iran has managed to establish in Syria, a key country for the arrival of weapons to the groups that threaten Israelis from the north.
Regional conflict
The repetition of these attacks caused Joshua Zarka, head of strategic affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to directly accuse Iran of trying to open a second war front by turning to Hezbollah. Yoav Gallant, Minister of Defense, visited the troops and, questioned by reporters, was clear when pointing out that “we are not interested in a war in the north, we do not want the situation to escalate, but if Hezbollah bets on war it will pay for it.” very expensive”.
The army spokesman, Daniel Hagari, took the baton from his Defense Minister and announced that Israel “will operate anywhere in the Middle East to meet Israel’s security objectives. “We are highly prepared in all areas.”
Like Antony Blinken, Amirabdollahian also began a tour of the region when the war broke out in Gaza. He visited Lebanon to see Hezbollah leaders and traveled to Qatar, where he met with the Hamas leadership and the emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. As the days have passed, his tone has hardened to the point of him openly raising the possibility of the “expansion of the conflict” if Israel does not stop its punishment against Gaza. The United States’ response to Iran’s veiled threats was to send a second warship to the area in the hope that it would serve as a deterrent effect. The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower is already in the area.
Death and displacement
The punishment against Gaza translates into death, destruction and the forced displacement of a million people, according to the UN, which describes the situation as “catastrophic.” Israel reopened a temporary window for the departure of civilians from the north and announced the return of water supply to the southern part of the Strip, the first measure that eases the total blockade imposed by the Army.
Entire neighborhoods have become ground zero, without a single building standing. The hospitals are overflowing, as are the morgues, and tens of thousands of people now live around them in the hope that Israel will not bomb the medical centers. There is no place in the cemeteries, nor is there time for funerals3w due to fear of missiles and the victims have begun to be buried in mass graves, reported the Palestinian agency Wafa.
Inside Gaza is the Spanish anesthetist Raul Incertis, who is part of the Doctors Without Borders (MSF) team. After spending the first days in the UN bunker in Gaza City, the international organization evacuated him to the southern part of the Strip on Friday after receiving the Army’s ultimatum. On the other end of the phone, Incertis, with experience in Afghanistan and Yemen, confesses that “I don’t think I will experience something like this again in my life. I’m not much of a social media person, but I propose a hashtag that says something like #humantariancorridorforpalestine. We ask for the opening of a humanitarian corridor because there is no safe place not even in the UN schools, we must open a corridor right now.
The situation in hospitals is extreme and Incertis warns that “the stock of public hospitals is running out and there is no gasoline for the generators. Each hospital depends on the amount of fuel it has stored. “Afterwards we will have to do medicine in the dark, with candles.”
The role of Egypt
Egypt has the key to the only border that can be operational for Gazans. The Rafah crossing remained closed for another day, although the possible departure of foreign citizens and the entry of dozens of trucks with humanitarian aid are being negotiated. Before closing his tour with a new visit to Israel, Antony Blinken met in Cairo with President Al Sisi and said that Tel Aviv “must take all possible precautions to avoid civilian casualties.”
Al Sisi’s role will be key in this war because Egypt’s mediation is usually the one that achieves ceasefire agreements. The Egyptian leader criticized the magnitude of Israel’s response to the Hamas attack because “it goes beyond self-defense and has become collective punishment.”
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