2023-10-27 06:00:00
European Union leaders have called for “pauses” in the conflict between Israel and Palestinian Hamas to facilitate access to humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza, which is besieged and where “no one is safe” , says the UN.
In six days, 74 aid trucks arrived, from neighboring Egypt, in the Palestinian territory of 362 km2, subject to “a complete siege” which deprives its 2.4 million inhabitants of water, food and electricity, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Thursday evening. That is much less than the 500 trucks a day which arrived, before the conflict, in Gaza, already subject to an Israeli blockade since Hamas came to power in 2007.
“Humanitarian partners cannot safely access populations in need and warehouses where aid is stored,” added OCHA.
“Humanitarian corridors”
Faced with this situation, the heads of state and government of the 27 EU countries expressed Thursday evening their “deepest concern regarding the deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Gaza”, in a joint declaration calling for “humanitarian corridors ” and “breaks” to deliver aid.
The White House also suggested Tuesday “pauses” to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid, rather than a ceasefire which “at this stage would only benefit Hamas”, classified as a terrorist organization by the States. -United States, the European Union and Israel.
EU leaders also said they were in favor of organizing an “international peace conference” “soon”, as the conflict, triggered by the bloody attack by Hamas on Israeli soil, enters into its 21st day.
On October 7, hundreds of fighters from the Islamist movement infiltrated Israeli soil from the Gaza Strip, during an attack of unprecedented violence and scale since the creation of Israel in 1948.
In Israel, 1,400 people, according to the authorities, have been killed since the start of the war, including a thousand civilians who died on the day of the attack.
According to the Israeli army, 224 hostages, Israeli, binational or foreign, were kidnapped during this attack by Hamas, which has released four women to date.
Thursday evening, the families of the hostages warned in Tel Aviv that they had reached “the end of their patience” and demanded to be received by the government.
“For twenty days the government has been silent,” lamented Eyal Sheni, the father of Roni Sheni, a 19-year-old soldier hostage or missing.
On the Palestinian side, more than 7,000 people have been killed, the majority civilians including around 3,000 children, according to Hamas, in Israeli bombings in retaliation since.
American strikes
Satellite images released Thursday show the extent of the destruction, with entire neighborhoods razed by bombing. According to OCHA, citing the Gaza Ministry of Public Works and Housing, 45% of homes in the Gaza Strip have been “damaged or destroyed.”
Since October 15, the Israeli army has called on the population of the northern Gaza Strip, where the bombardments are the most intense, to evacuate to the south. At least 1.4 million Palestinians have fled their homes since the start of the war, according to the UN.
However, strikes also continue to affect the south, where several hundred thousand civilians are massed.
According to the UN, however, some 30,000 displaced people have returned to the north of the territory in recent days.
“We are returning to die in our homes. It will be more dignified,” said Abdallah Ayyad, who after taking refuge in a hospital in Deir el-Balah, returns to Gaza City, with his wife and their five daughters, packed in the trailer of a scooter.
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, the Israeli army carried out a “targeted raid” with tanks in the north of the Gaza Strip, as a prelude to a ground offensive announced several times and confirmed Wednesday evening by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who promised to “annihilate” Hamas.
The international community fears the consequences of this possible offensive, fearing a significant number of civilian victims but also a conflagration in the region.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that the United States carried out strikes on Thursday against two facilities used by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and “affiliated groups” in eastern Syria.
“These self-defense and precision strikes are a response to a series of ongoing, and mostly failed, attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria by Iranian-backed militias” since October 17 , Mr. Austin said in a press release.
“Not spared”
The announcement came after President Joe Biden sent a message to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warning against any attacks targeting US troops.
“A direct message has been sent. I will not go any further,” confirmed White House spokesperson John Kirby.
Thursday, before the United Nations, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian declared that his country did not want the conflict to spread. “But I warn that if the genocide in Gaza continues, they will not be spared from this fire,” he added, addressing the United States.
Exchanges of fire are also daily on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, supported by Iran and ally of Hamas.
In Egypt, AlQahera News television – close to intelligence – and witnesses said that six people were injured when a rocket fell on the night of Thursday to Friday in Taba, a town on the Israeli border.
“As part of the current escalation in Gaza, a rocket crashed in Taba, injuring six people,” reports AlQahera News television, close to Egyptian intelligence. Witnesses told AFP that a rocket had fallen on an annex to a hospital in this city, located on the Red Sea and at the northeastern tip of Sinai, where there is a border post to Israel.
Tension is also very high in the occupied West Bank, where more than a hundred Palestinians have been killed in violence since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. Calls for demonstrations, after Friday prayers, were launched in several cities in the Palestinian Territories, including Nablus and Hebron.
27/10/2023 05:59:03 – Khan Younès (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
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