Street fighting and Israeli bombings resumed on Wednesday in the south of the Gaza Strip, after three days of relative calm, while the army says it is preparing for a possible offensive in Lebanon against the Islamist movement Hezbollah.
The war that broke out on October 7 in the Palestinian territory after an attack by Hamas, an ally of Lebanese Hezbollah, on Israel, has inflamed tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where exchanges of fire have intensified recently.
The Gaza Strip had experienced a relative lull since Sunday, after the announcement of a pause in Israeli operations along a road of around ten kilometers in the south.
This lull, which coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, was supposed to allow the entry of humanitarian aid from the Israeli crossing point of Kerem Shalom. The UN, however, declared on Tuesday that this pause should “still result in more aid reaching the populations”.
The army had assured to maintain its strategy, which aims to destroy Hamas, and to continue its ground operations launched on May 7 in the town of Rafah, on the border with Egypt.
Israeli bombings targeted Rafah and several areas of the center of the territory on Wednesday, according to witnesses and Civil Defense.
Seven people were killed overnight, according to rescuers, by drone strikes on tents in the Al-Mawasi area, at the gates of Rafah, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have taken refuge.
Fighting pitted Israeli soldiers and Palestinian fighters in the Saudi neighborhood, west of Rafah, under bombardment and artillery fire, according to the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, a Palestinian armed group allied with Hamas.
Witnesses also said that several military vehicles entered the Saudi neighborhood, supported by drone and tank fire.
In the north, witnesses reported artillery fire in Zeitoun, a neighborhood of Gaza City, while a shelling near the Nuseirat camp in the center killed three people.
On the northern front, the Israeli army announced Tuesday that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” had been “approved and validated.”
The head of Israeli diplomacy, Israel Katz, had shortly before threatened Hezbollah, very established in southern Lebanon, with destruction following a “total war”. “We are very close to the moment when we will decide to change the rules of the game against Hezbollah and Lebanon,” he warned.
An emissary from American President Joe Biden, Amos Hochstein, was in Beirut at the same time where he deemed “urgent” a de-escalation between Israel and Hezbollah, in order to avoid “a large-scale war”.
Mr. Hochstein defended the ceasefire plan in the Gaza Strip presented on May 31 by Joe Biden, saying that it also represented “an opportunity to end the conflict” on the Israeli-Lebanese border.
Earlier, Hezbollah had broadcast images presented as taken by one of its drones above Haifa, the major port in northern Israel, the authenticity of which AFP was unable to verify.
The war broke out on October 7, when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza in southern Israel carried out an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people kidnapped, 116 are still being held hostage in Gaza, 41 of whom are dead, according to the army.
In response, the Israeli army launched an offensive on the Gaza Strip, which has so far left 37,372 people dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government. .
The UN expressed concern on Wednesday about the Israeli army’s respect for the laws of war, publishing an investigation into six “emblematic” bombings in the Gaza Strip, which left at least 218 dead during the first two months of the war.
“The obligation to choose means and methods of warfare that avoid or, at the very least, minimize to the greatest extent possible harm to civilians appears to have been systematically violated,” said the High Commissioner for Human Rights. the man, Volker Türk.
For these attacks, Israel resorted to the “alleged use” of bombs with an explosive charge of up to one ton, according to this report, “on residential buildings, a school, refugee camps and a market.”
The war has also caused a humanitarian catastrophe in the besieged territory, where international aid is only arriving in insufficient quantities.
According to a UN spokesperson, Farhan Haq, the Kerem Shalom crossing “was operating with limited capacity” on Tuesday, “in particular because of the fighting”, while the Rafah crossing remains closed since the Israeli army took control, on the Palestinian side, in early May.
“In recent weeks, the situation has improved in the north, but has deteriorated considerably in the south,” he assured, stressing that basic products “were available on markets in the south and center from Gaza, but at prices unaffordable for many people”, due to lack of sufficient quantities.
After more than eight months of war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing growing criticism in his country.
Tuesday evening, like the day before, several thousand people demonstrated in Jerusalem to demand early elections and an agreement that would allow the release of the hostages.
But Benjamin Netanyahu assures that he will continue the war until the elimination of Hamas, in power since 2007 in Gaza and considered a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. The Islamist movement, for its part, demands a definitive ceasefire and a total Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
