2023-10-16 20:41:57
To better understand the latest events in the conflict between the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and Israel, 20 Minutes takes stock every evening. Between the strong declarations, the diplomatic advances or the dramatic results of the fighting, here are the main points of the day.
News of the day
We had to wait until the end of the day on Monday for good news to finally reach Gaza. The President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced the opening of a humanitarian air corridor to the Gaza Strip through Egypt. “The first two flights will leave this week, and they will bring humanitarian materials to Gaza,” said the EU leader.
Earlier in the day, Israel affirmed that no truce was in progress to allow the entry of this humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip. The day before, it was UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who called on Israel to authorize the entry of aid into Gaza. The Middle East is “on the edge of the abyss”, he warned on Sunday, also calling on Hamas to release all the hostages.
The number of the day
19. Like the number of French people killed after the Hamas attack. Among them, the body of Céline Ben David-Nagar was identified, according to our information. The mother took part in a music festival during which Hamas killed several hundred people on Saturday October 7. The young French girl leaves behind a little girl aged 6 months. A few days ago, her brother and her husband called on France for help during a press conference organized in Tel Aviv.
Sentence of the day
There are 24 hours of water, electricity and fuel left, after which it will be a real disaster for all the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. »
This is the observation drawn up by the UN, the Red Cross and the Red Crescent. If aid does not come in, doctors will only have to “prepare death certificates”, the regional head of the WHO told AFP. The Gaza Strip is under “complete Israeli siege” in response to the Hamas attack launched on October 7. With around 2,750 dead and nearly 10,000 injured, according to local authorities, everyone is overwhelmed, specifies the WHO. Nearly a million residents are now displaced.
Today’s trend
Tension rises between Israel and Lebanon at the border. Israel has begun the evacuation of certain nationals living along the demarcation, while deadly clashes have increased between Hezbollah, pro-Hamas, and the Israeli army.
While Israel is preparing for a ground military intervention in the Gaza Strip, Lebanon must do everything to stay away from this spiral, judges the head of French diplomacy Catherine Colonna. So far, clashes at the border have left around ten dead on the Lebanese side, including a Reuters journalist, and at least two dead on the Israeli side. The Lebanese army said Monday it had discovered “20 missile launch pads, four of which carry missiles prepared for launch,” near the Israeli-Lebanese border.
If, along the borders, deadly clashes have increased in recent days between the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and the Israeli army, these exchanges of fire do not, however, go beyond acts of intimidation for the moment. usual between the two parties. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah would have an interest in opening a front on the Lebanese border, they explain to 20 Minutes Adel Bakawan, director of the French research center on Iraq, and Pascale Asmar, political and media discourse analyst and independent researcher in Lebanon. Experts even assure that entering this war for Hezbollah would be “a suicidal operation, the whole Middle East could burn”.
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