2023-12-28 23:40:00
Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al Qudra said “the number of victims was likely to increase” / Photo: AFP.
This Thursday, Israeli forces bombed cities and refugee camps from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip and killed dozens of Palestinians, with Israel determined to redouble an almost three-month offensive against the Islamist Hamas movement that has expanded to almost the entire territory and displaced several thousand civilians, amid new UN warnings over the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.
The conflict has already left more than 21,000 Palestinians dead and expelled about 85% of the 2.3 million inhabitants of their homes from their homes. Gaza. Much of the north of the territory was devastated by aerial bombardments and urban fighting, and has been largely depopulated and isolated from the rest for weeks.
#Gaza People forced to move once again. More people in less space. Rafah in the south is now bursting at the seams. No respite. Time for a humanitarian #ceasefire@UNRWA pic.twitter.com/sC9lhYRjq7
— Thomas White (@TomWhiteGaza) December 26, 2023
Israel said this week that will expand its combined air and ground offensive to a third sector, the center of the Gaza Stripafter attacking refugee camps there by air and bringing troops and tanks closer to them, after opening a second front of combat in the southern city of Khan Yunis at the beginning of December.
In the umpteenth international warning about the situation in Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said this Thursday that civilians in the region “They are dealing with catastrophic hunger.” due to the lack of food as a result of Israel closing all its borders.
“Every day is a fight for survival, to find food and water,” he said. Thomas White, UNRWA Gaza Affairs Directoron social network X, and added that “40% of the population is already at risk of suffering from famine.”
Israel has promised to dismantle Hamas to prevent it from launching attacks again like those on October 7, when militants from the group infiltrated from Gaza killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 240, including about twenty Argentines.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahuhas rejected international calls for a ceasefire, believing this would be a “gift” to Hamas and instead vowed to intensify the offensive until the group is destroyed and the hostages still held captive are recovered. after 105 were released last month during a truce.
The Security Council approves a resolution demanding the delivery of immediate and safe humanitarian aid in Gaza, as well as the creation of conditions for the sustainable cessation of hostilities. pic.twitter.com/NkDwAsgQZy
— United Nations (@ONU_es) December 22, 2023
The United States provided crucial political and military support on the offensive and, although he has also urged Israel to reduce civilian casualties and allow more aid into Gaza, the situation on the ground has not changed much, even after the UN Security Council passed a resolution who asked for the same thing last week.
In that context, however, Hamas announced today that it will send a delegation to Egypt tomorrow to share its “observations” on an Egyptian plan for a ceasefire. “A high-level delegation from the Hamas political bureau (based in Qatar) will travel to Cairo this Friday to meet with Egyptian officials and convey to them the response of the Palestinian factions, which includes several observations, to their plan,” declared a Hamas officialwho spoke on condition of anonymity, according to the AFP news agency.
The plan in question was presented last week to the leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which is also involved in the fighting against Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip, during visits to Cairo by the leaders of both movements.
In Gaza, meanwhile, an Israeli bombardment killed more than 30 people when it hit a square and surrounding houses in Beit Lahiya this Thursday.a city in the northern Strip that was one of the first targets of the ground offensive, in late October, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported, citing medical sources.
Two journalists were among the dead, the Hamas Government Press Office in Gaza said, adding that this brought to 105 the number of press workers who lost their lives in the offensive.
In central Gaza, Israeli warplanes and artillery bombed the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps and leveled buildings, residents told Wafa. The agency said at least seven Palestinians were killed in an attack in Nuseirat.
Photo: AFP
Israel said this week it would expand its ground offensive into central Gaza and ordered the evacuation of an area there, which includes the Bureij camp, where tens of thousands of Palestinians fleeing from the north are taking refuge. Israel, which has asked civilians in that area to go to the nearby city of Deir el-Balah, typically launches airstrikes before troops and tanks arrive. Hamas said this week that it attacked an Israeli tank east of Bureij.
Also there were airstrikes in Khan Yuniswhere at least one Palestinian was killed and several others were injured in the southeast of the city, Qatari television station Al Jazeera reported.
It’s a statement, The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 50 Palestinians were killed on Thursday and dozens were injured. in Israeli morning attacks in Beit Lahiya, Khan Yunis and the Al Maghazi refugee camp, which is also in central Gaza, near Bureij and Deir el-Balah.
The Israeli Army blames the high number of civilian deaths on Hamas, which positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in residential areas
Israel’s offensive in Gaza is already one of the most devastating military campaigns in recent history. At least 21,320 Palestinians, most of them women and children, died in Israeli bombings or fighting in Gaza, including 220 in the last 24 hours, while another 55,603 were injured, the local Ministry of Health indicated today. The count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The Israeli Army claims it has killed thousands of Hamas militants and that 167 of its soldiers have died in the ground offensive.
The conflict spread across the Middle East, with hundreds of attacks against US and Israeli targets in or from Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen by militias supported by Iran, which is an enemy of Israel and the United States.
In Syria, pro-Iran militias attacked two United States military bases in the east of the country on Thursday, the NGO Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, without giving immediate details about victims or material damage.
Photo: AFP
In the West Bank, the other Palestinian territories, which are separated from Gaza by the Israeli State and occupied and colonized by Israel, more than 300 Palestinians have died in attacks by the Army or Israeli settlers since October 7.
The highest authority of the UN on human rights, Volker Türk, asked Israel this Thursday “end illegal killings” of Palestinians in the West Bank, in a report that denounces a rapid deterioration of the situation in the region.
Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, denounced “the use of military tactics and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force and the application of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions affecting Palestinians” in the West Bank. “The intensity of the violence and repression has not been seen for years,” he added.
The latest ICF report warns that acute food insecurity puts the 335,000 children under five in the Gaza Strip at high risk of severe malnutrition and dying from preventable causes.
— UNICEF in Spanish (@unicefenespanol) December 27, 2023
For his part, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) He said Thursday that 2023 was “the deadliest year for children” in the West Bank and that “conflict-related violence has reached unprecedented levels.”
“In the last twelve weeks, 83 boys and girls have been murderedmore than double all boys and girls killed in all of 2022, amid an increase in military operations and police forces” by Israel, said UNICEF director for the Middle East and North Africa, Adele Khodr. “More than 576 children have been injured and the arrest of some others has been reported,” he added.
#Gaza: I call for an immediate end to the use of military weapons and means during Israeli law enforcement operations, an end to ill-treatment & discriminatory restrictions of Palestinians – @volker_turk on the UN report on the human rights situation in the occupied West Bank
— UN Human Rights (@UNHumanRights) December 28, 2023
Mediation attempt
Egypt this week presented a proposal to end the conflict that would include the release of all hostages held in Gaza and all Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, as well as the establishment of a government of Palestinian technocrats to administer Gaza and the West Bank until they can. elections be held. The plan received a cold reception from both sidesbut none rejected it outright.
The head of Egypt’s State Information Service, Dia Rashuan, said Thursday that the proposal was drawn up from the “points of view” of the parties involved, but that he had not yet received a response from them.
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