Bombings in Gaza and outbreak of violence on the Lebanese border

Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa Agence France-Presse A girl inspects the rubble of a destroyed clothing store in a residential building hit by Israeli bombardment in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza on Friday.

France Media Agency to Rafah

Published yesterday at 9:30 a.m. Updated yesterday at 10:14 p.m.

• Middle East

The Israeli army bombarded the devastated and besieged Gaza Strip on Friday, as the prospect of a quick truce in the war between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas fades, despite international efforts.

In the ninth month of the war, Israel’s northern front on the border with Lebanon is experiencing a new outbreak of violence with intense cross-border exchanges of fire between Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, and the Israeli army.

Once again, hopes for a ceasefire in the conflict triggered by an unprecedented attack by the Islamist movement Hamas against Israel on October 7 appear to have been dashed, with the protagonists sticking to their inviolable positions.

In the early hours of Friday, witnesses reported Israeli strikes on the small Palestinian territory, which is in the grip of a major humanitarian crisis with the threat of famine and where 75% of the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants have been displaced according to the UN.

The army is mainly concentrating its operations in Rafah (south), where it launched on May 7 its ground offensive, which it says is essential to eliminate Hamas. But the bombings and fighting continue elsewhere in the Gaza Strip.

“Enough!”

“We were sitting at home and eating. Suddenly the house collapsed on us,” Anwar Harz, who was injured and being treated at Al-Ahli hospital, was hit by a nighttime Israeli strike on the city of Gaza (north), told AFP. “Enough, enough of the war and destruction.”

Several injured Palestinians, including children, were taken to the hospital, one of the few still functioning, at least minimally, in the Palestinian territory. In the morgue, several bodies wrapped in blankets were placed on the floor.

At Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah (center), members of the Hegazi family mourn the death of Eyad, 10, who they say died of malnutrition. Images show his sister holding his severely emaciated body.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 8,000 children under the age of five have been treated in Gaza for acute malnutrition, “including 1,600 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition.”

“There have already been 32 deaths attributed to malnutrition, including 28 among children under the age of five,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday.

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According to the military, troops in Rafah “have eliminated terrorists, located large quantities of weapons and tunnel openings” and “destroyed Hamas infrastructure sites.”

In central and eastern Gaza, In northern Gaza, Israeli warplanes targeted “terrorist structures or cells,” she added.

Read also

• US seeks truce as Israel bombs southern Gaza
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Biden blames Hamas

The war was started on October 7 by the attack launched by Hamas from Gaza in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.

Of 251 people kidnapped, 116 are still held hostage in Gaza, of whom 41 are dead, according to the army.

In response, the Israeli army launched a large-scale offensive in Gaza that left 37,266 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government.

A truce plan in Gaza announced on May 31 by US President Joe Biden, Israel's main ally, has so far remained a dead letter, with the Israeli government and Hamas sticking to their positions .

The plan provides, in a first phase, for a six-week ceasefire accompanied by an Israeli withdrawal from the densely populated areas of Gaza, the liberation of certain hostages held in Gaza and the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Mr. Biden presented this plan as coming from Israel. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu deemed it incomplete, reaffirming his government's determination to continue the war until the defeat of Hamas and the release of all hostages.

Hamas sent the mediating countries a first response, which according to a source close to the discussions, contains “amendments” to the plan, including “a timetable for a permanent ceasefire and the total withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza.” . Demands that Israel has always rejected.

On the sidelines of the G7 summit in Italy, Mr. Biden blamed Hamas on Thursday. “I submitted a proposal approved by the Security Council, by the G7, by the Israelis, and the main obstacle at this point is Hamas refusing to sign, even though they proposed something similar. »

According to a draft declaration, the G7 called on Friday for UN agencies, including that for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, to be able to work without hindrance to Gaza.

In the wake of this, Washington announced that it was taking sanctions against an Israeli extremist group, the “Tzav 9,” accused of obstructing the distribution of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.

Alert sirens

Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from the Palestinian territory it occupied for 38 years. The movement is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States, and the European Union.

Accused by the Israeli authorities of supporting Hamas, the Qatari channel Al Jazeera saw its ban in Israel extended by 35 days by the courts.

In northern Israel, rocket warning sirens sounded Friday, with police speaking of “around 35 projectiles” fired from Lebanon falling in the vicinity of the towns of Kiryat Shmona and Kfar Szold. A certain “number” of projectiles were intercepted and no one was injured during these attacks, said the same source.

During the night, Israeli strikes cost the lives of two civilians in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese National Agency, after rocket and drone attacks by Lebanese Hezbollah against military targets in northern Israel.