2023-12-30 10:30:28
The Israeli military continues to deepen its offensive in southern Gaza on the 84th day of its war with Hamas, as concern grows over the widespread spread of infectious diseases among the population of the Strip.
Israeli troops said this Friday that they are intensifying operations in the city of Khan Yunis and surrounding areas such as Khirbat Ikhza, where they are fighting with Palestinian terrorists and claim to have killed dozens of them, while also locating tunnels, seizing weapons or explosives from Hamas. in the zone.
The attacks continue in turn throughout the rest of the Strip, in an area that is increasingly destroyed and with the supposed number of Palestinian deaths on the rise, since this Friday it increased to more than 21,500 since the outbreak of the war on December 7. October, according to Hamas data, when terrorists launched a surprise attack against Israel that left more than 1,200 dead.
Since then, and despite international pressure and complaints such as that of South Africa – which denounced Israel for genocide in Gaza before the International Court of Justice – the Israeli Government remains firm in its will to continue the war to “dismantle Hamas.” .
For days now, the press has indicated that Qatar would be seeking a new truce agreement for the release of part of the more than one hundred Israeli hostages who remain captive in the Strip, and Doha has formulated a proposal that it transmitted to Israel and its Security Cabinet. discussed this Friday, reports the Jerusalem Post newspaper.
The proposal would include a first phase of exchange of about forty or fifty captives in exchange for a ceasefire that should last for weeks, but neither Hamas nor Israel have so far given a clear answer on the matter, so a possible pact does not exist. seems imminent for now.
On the other hand, the Israeli Army announced that in these days it found and destroyed a network of tunnels in northern Gaza that served as Hamas headquarters, as well as a “hidden apartment” as part of this complex, near the city of Gaza, which was used by the leader of the Islamist group in the Strip, Yahia Sinwar.
While for another 7,000 Gazans who are believed to be dead under the rubble of destroyed buildings, the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, denounced this Friday on the social network in recent days there have been several attacks – has caused “a large number of victims despite the Israeli Army’s obligation to protect civilians.”
“The bombing of the Al Maghazi refugee camp was one of the deadliest and now the displacement of another 150,000 people has been reported,” said Borrell, who insisted that “a new pause in hostilities is urgent.”
On the other hand, internally displaced people in Gaza – many concentrated in the south – are more than 1.9 million, which represents around 85% of the population of Gaza, out of a total of 2.3 million, and in a situation catastrophic humanitarian crisis due to lack of food, drinking water, basic resources or fuel to generate electricity, which means that only 36% of hospitals function partially and at their limit.
Disease risk
The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said today through his X account that he “remains very concerned about the growing threat of infectious diseases in Gaza”, while many “continue to fall ill” due to the rigid Israeli fence that limits the entry of basic supplies.
“About 180,000 people suffer from upper respiratory infections”, there are 136,400 cases of diarrhea – half in children under five years of age -, about 55,400 cases of lice and scabies, 5,330 cases of chickenpox, as well as more than 42,000 cases of skin rash and 126 cases of meningitis, declared Ghebreyesus, who stressed that the WHO works “tirelessly” to prevent more infectious diseases.
On the other hand, COGAT – the Israeli office for the coordination of civil affairs in Palestinian territory – announced that it has allowed, in coordination with Unicef, the entry of 49,000 doses of vaccines to Gaza to prevent diseases such as polio, tuberculosis, hepatitis, diphtheria, tetanus or meningitis.
“At the beginning of the week, another 80,000 doses of vaccine donated by Unicef with facilitation from the State of Israel entered Gaza,” a COGAT spokeswoman said in a statement.
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