2023-12-12 01:17:37
Hamas militiamen and Israeli soldiers fought heavy fighting in the Gaza Strip on Monday, while Palestinians held a general strike to demand an end to the war.
The airstrikes hit the cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, in the southern tip of the small territory, where thousands of civilians took refuge after fleeing the fighting that raged in the north.
The Ministry of Health of the Palestinian territory, governed by Hamas since 2007, reported dozens of deaths in these two cities, as well as in northern towns such as Gaza City and the Jabalia refugee camp.
The Israeli Army, for its part, reported rocket fire from Gaza towards Israel. The United States reminded its ally Israel this Monday that the white phosphorus munitions it supplied can only be used to illuminate battlefields and not to attack people.
General strike in Palestine
“We are tired,” said Majed, a 60-year-old Palestinian who runs a cafe in the Old City of Jerusalem, an area normally full of tourists and pilgrims that was almost empty after the start of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, on December 7. October. The violence has increased regional tension and is evident in the Holy City, where Palestinians say Israeli police have increased arrests, intimidation and checkpoints.
This Monday’s strike was called by the National and Islamic Forces, a coalition of important Palestinian factions, and the call was spread on social networks to invite other countries to join the demand for a ceasefire. The doors of most shops, companies or schools were closed in both East Jerusalem and the West Bank, both territories occupied by Israel, in a show of solidarity of the Palestinian population with their compatriots in Gaza, where those killed by the Israeli attacks There are more than 18,200 and the wounded are close to 50 thousand since the start of the war.
In the last few hours, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 200 people were killed by Israeli attacks and another 416 were injured, while “a large number of victims remain under the rubble” or lying on streets and routes where health services or rescue cannot access, so the total number of deaths could be much higher. “During the last hours the occupation (Israel) committed 19 massacres in residential neighborhoods and shelters in all areas of Gaza,” said the authorities of the Strip.
Controversial arrests
Given the war and the increase in calls for an immediate ceasefire, it was also revealed that Israeli forces detained 142 Gazan girls, women and elderly women since the beginning of the ground incursion on October 27. According to Palestinian entities, they are still imprisoned by Israel, while in recent days images have also emerged on networks in which Israeli soldiers are seen arresting Palestinians, leaving them handcuffed and almost naked.
According to the press, Israeli security sources assure that around 10 percent of those arrested would be related to Hamas, and after being interrogated, some of those released reported that they were subjected to mistreatment and violence. Palestinian militants launched more volleys of rockets towards different parts of Israel, both areas bordering Gaza and the center of the country, including the city of Tel Aviv, which caused minor injuries to a man in the city of Holon.
The Al Qassam brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, continue fighting in Gaza with Israeli forces, who have lost at least 104 soldiers in clashes since the beginning of their ground offensive. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant assured that troops are “about to dismantle” Hamas militia battalions in the Jabalia Refugee Camp, north of Gaza, and the Shijaiya neighborhood, in the city of Loop.
“People lack everything”
The director of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, assured that “there is no truly safe place in the Gaza Strip, even the UN offices have been hit.” “There are more and more people without food for a day, two days, three days. People lack everything,” said Lazzarini before a visit to the narrow territory where, according to him, the situation of civilians is desperate.
Israel has imposed a complete siege on Gaza since October 9, preventing the entry of water, food, medicine and fuel. About 1.9 million of the enclave’s 2.4 million inhabitants were displaced, almost a million of them children according to the UN children’s body. Israel had ordered the population to take refuge in the south of the territory, but the army attacks targets throughout the Strip.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians are now crowding in the south, near the closed border with Egypt, and are forced to move repeatedly as the fighting spreads. “We move from one area to another and there is no safe place,” lamented Abu Mohamed, on the way to Rafah, which has become a large camp. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), only 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are operating normally.
Drugged hostages in Gaza?
According to Renana Eitan, director of the psychiatric service at Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv, the hostages kidnapped by Hamas were drugged to keep them docile and suffered psychological and sexual abuse. “I have never seen anything like this” in 20 years treating trauma victims, Eitan said, adding that “the physical, sexual, mental and psychological abuse of the returned hostages is terrible.”
The center he directs received 14 hostages released by Hamas. Some reported being drugged, including what doctors believe were benzodiazepines, psychotropic medications with sedative effects. “They wanted to control the children. They know that if they drug them they will be silent,” explained Eitan, who added that “one of the girls was administered ketamine for a few weeks,” a powerful dissociative anesthetic known to cause a feeling of disconnection from the environment. .
US warning to Israel
The war is also being suffered outside Gaza. After the Washington Post newspaper published that the Israeli Army had injured at least nine civilians with white phosphorus in an attack in October in southern Lebanon, the United States recalled that the only “legitimate use” of white phosphorus in the field of battle is to illuminate the area. “Evidently, every time we supply elements such as white phosphorus to another army it is with the conviction that it will be used for these legitimate purposes and in compliance with the law,” said White House Security Council spokesman John Kirby.
A Washington Post journalist found remains of three artillery shells containing white phosphorus in Dhiera, a Lebanese town near the border with Israel. Of the nine wounded in the Israeli attack on Dheira on October 16, at least three were hospitalized, one of them for days. The newspaper noted that the production codes of the batches found coincide with the nomenclature used by the US Army to classify ammunition manufactured in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1989 and 1992.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), white phosphorus burns instantly when it comes into contact with oxygen and is often used by the military to illuminate battlefields. This substance causes deep and severe burns, and can even corrode bones. Its smoke is harmful to the eyes and respiratory tract.
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