2023-11-04 23:51:31
At least 15 people were killed and 70 wounded this Saturday in an Israeli attack that hit a UN school housing displaced people from the war in the northern Gaza Strip, while Israeli forces announced that they also carried out an early morning raid in the southern area of the Palestinian enclave, an announcement that confirms that the focus of the conflict is beginning to expand.
“The massacre of the Al Fakhura school perpetrated by the Israeli occupier this morning left 15 martyrs and 70 injured,” reported the spokesman for the Ministry of Health of the Gaza Strip, Ashraf al Qidreh. Yesterday, a bombing hit another school converted into a shelter for displaced people in the north of the Gaza Strip, leaving 20 dead and dozens injured, according to the Islamist movement. Last Thursday the UN had announced that four of its schools in the Gaza Strip, which welcomed people displaced by the war, had been hit by bombings that caused the death of 23 people.
night raid
Additionally, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Saturday that it carried out a “limited incursion” overnight into southern Gaza, as troops continued to advance their offensive against Hamas in the northern part of the enclave, the outlet reported. Times of Israel.
The IDF said the operation, carried out by combat engineering forces and tanks, led by the Gaza Division, consisted of mapping buildings and clearing the area of planted explosive devices. They added that during the operation the troops encountered a Hamas cell that came out of a tunnel and that the troops bombed the militants and killed them, the Israeli newspaper added.
An estimated 800,000 Palestinians have fled south of Gaza City and other northern areas following repeated Israeli calls to evacuate, but hundreds of thousands remain in the north, including many who left and then returned because Israel is also carrying out carried out some air strikes in the south.
The IDF also reported this Saturday of new actions in the north of the Gaza Strip, where they confronted members of Hamas and located tunnels and weapons. “During the last day, infantry and armored fighters under the command of the 460th Brigade operated in the northern Gaza Strip, in an area from which numerous attempts to attack IDF forces through tunnels and military complexes,” the IDF explained on its X social network account (formerly Twitter).
In one of the combats they had to face 15 militiamen, eliminating several and using tanks to destroy three Hamas observation posts, according to the IDF, reported the Europa Press news agency.
No date in sight
The Israeli authorities insist that they will continue with their operation until the threats are eradicated, without setting a date for a battery of operations that began after the attacks carried out by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 and which left more than 1,400 dead in Israeli territory. the vast majority civilians, and from where they took more than 220 hostages.
At least 9,488 people died in the Gaza Strip, including some 3,900 children, as a result of the offensive launched by Israeli forces in response to the Hamas attacks on October 7, according to a new balance released this Saturday by the Ministry of Gazan Health.
The organization, controlled by Hamas, also has registered more than 24,100 wounded, but clarified that these are provisional figures since there would still be 2,000 people missing. “70% of the victims of Israeli aggression are children, women and the elderly,” denounced the Ministry of Health.
The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, reiterated this Saturday Washington’s request to establish “humanitarian pauses” in the Gaza Strip, to be able to route aid, after holding meetings with foreign ministers of Arab countries in Jordan, after passing through Israeli territory and before traveling on Sunday to Turkey, where he will remain for two days.
“The United States estimates that these efforts will be facilitated by humanitarian pauses,” Blinken highlighted in Jordan, referring to the need to protect civilians and accelerate the delivery of aid to the enclave. Blinken met this Saturday in Amman, the capital of Jordan, with the foreign ministers of five Arab countries, his second visit to the region since the Hamas attack on Israel.
The United States and its Arab partners share “the same fundamental interests and objectives” to end the war between Israel and Hamas “in a way that ensures lasting peace and security in the region,” Blinken said after the summit, although he acknowledged that they could have “different opinions and positions” on how to achieve that end.
Among those present were Lebanon’s interim prime minister, Najib Mikati, whose country is home to the Shiite militia Hezbollah, and Qatar’s foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, whose country has become the country’s most influential interlocutor. Hamas and has been key in negotiating the release of four of the hostages held by the Palestinian Islamist group.
During the meeting, the Jordanian Foreign Minister, Ayman Al Safadi, urged to “end the war” in Gaza and accused Israel of committing “war crimes”, while his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shoukry, in turn demanded a ” “immediate and unconditional ceasefire.”
Shoukry noted that “Egypt is making all its efforts to ensure that aid reaches Gaza,” as a humanitarian crisis continues to unfold there, according to CNN. The Egyptian foreign minister also said it was premature to discuss the future of Gaza at this time.
“We need to focus on the issue at hand, whether it is the cessation of hostilities, addressing the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza, addressing issues of displacement and providing security for civilians, and addressing the overall context of the conflict.” Shoukry added.
The State Department did not confirm in its statement whether Blinken will hold a meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, although according to his environment it is likely to happen. Erdogan reported this Saturday that he cut off all contact with the Israeli prime minister due to Israel’s actions in the Gaza Strip and called his ambassador to Israel for consultations.
“We will not stop”
During his visit to Israel, the US foreign minister pressured that country’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to declare a pause in the fighting to allow the hostages to be freed and humanitarian aid to reach Gaza, amid growing concern over the increase in the number of civilian deaths.
However, Netanyahu revealed that he rejected any temporary cessation of the fight against Hamas that does not include the release of the hostages. “We will not stop until victory,” he added, clarifying that this means “destroying Hamas, (and achieving) the return of the hostages and the restoration of security for our citizens and children.”
Blinken said for his part that “the only way to guarantee” Israel’s security is the creation of a Palestinian State, in reference to the two-state solution, supported by the US Government, which implies that there is a Jewish State and a Palestinian State coexisting. in peace. “The best way, perhaps the only one, is two States for two peoples,” he said yesterday at a press conference.
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