The Israeli army on Friday intensified its strikes on the Gaza Strip in which at least 30 Palestinians were killed according to doctors, and exchanged new cross-border fire with Lebanese Hezbollah.
Lebanon cannot become “another Gaza”, launched UN boss Antonio Guterres, highlighting fears of a regional conflagration with the increase in shootings on the Israeli-Lebanese border and the threats brandished by Israel and Hezbollah, a movement armed and financed by Iran.
The war in Gaza, triggered by a bloody attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7 against Israeli soil, has also caused new tensions between Israel and the United States, historic allies, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticizing the pace deliveries of American military aid.
On Friday, Israeli aerial and artillery bombardments intensified according to witnesses in several areas of the Palestinian territory besieged by Israel since October 9.
“It was a difficult and very violent day in Gaza City (North). So far, around 30 martyrs have been transported to Al-Ahli Hospital,” said Dr. Fadel Naïm, director of the facility.
The strikes also targeted the town of Rafah in the south where the army reported fighting with Hamas.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as of May 17, only 750 people remained in Rafah, although the city was home to 1.4 million Palestinians, the vast majority of whom fled after the Israeli ground offensive launched on May 7.
In this small territory where some 2.4 million Palestinians are crowded together, “more than a million people are constantly on the move” in the hope of finding a safe place while “no place is safe,” said Dr Thanos Gargavanis, head of emergencies at WHO.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an attack in southern Israel that killed 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data. Of the 251 people kidnapped that day, 116 are still being held in Gaza, 41 of whom are dead.
In response, Israel promised to destroy Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers terrorist, as do the United States and the European Union.
His army launched a major offensive in Gaza that has so far left 37,431 people dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the local Hamas-led government’s Health Ministry.
The Israeli army announced the death of two soldiers, bringing to more than 310 the number of soldiers killed since ground operations in Gaza began on October 27.
Despite the humanitarian disaster in the Palestinian territory threatened by famine according to the UN, international aid cannot be transported and distributed by humanitarians due to the lack of security, according to the WHO.
A daily halt announced by Israel on a southern route, and presented as a way to facilitate the entry of aid through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, has had “no impact,” WHO said. Aid entry “has been minimal” and collecting it at Kerem Shalom is dangerous.
Mr Netanyahu said Israel was waging “a war for its existence” in Gaza and needed US weapons, amid tensions with the United States.
On Tuesday he accused the United States, Israel’s primary military supporter, of “withholding” arms deliveries.
Comments deemed “disappointing” and “offensive” by John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council, for whom “no other country is doing more to help Israel defend itself against the threat from Hamas.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met with Israeli officials in Washington on Thursday, wanted to “reiterate the United States’ unwavering commitment to Israel’s security.”
Mr. Blinken also underlined “the importance of avoiding a new escalation in Lebanon”, a country located on the northern border of Israel and where Hezbollah, a very influential movement in Lebanon, has opened the front in support of Hamas, his ally, on October 8.
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, warned on Wednesday that “no place” in Israel would be spared from his movement’s missiles after the Israeli military announced that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” had been ” validated”.
On Friday, Hezbollah said it launched explosive drones at a military position on Israel’s northern border and carried out rocket and drone attacks against other border military targets.
In Lebanon, media reported Israeli strikes and bombings against several locations in southern Lebanon.
“The risk of the conflict spreading to the Middle East is real and must be avoided. One thoughtless move, one miscalculation, could cause a catastrophe far beyond the border, and frankly unimaginable,” warns Mr. Guterres.
