Israel bombs Gaza, outbreak of violence on the border with Lebanon

The Israeli army bombed The devastated and besieged Gaza Strip on Friday faded, as the prospect of a quick truce in the war between Israel and ;euml;l and Palestinian Hamas, despite the 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 seem dashed, with the protagonists sticking to their intangible positions.

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

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

– “Enough”! –

Palestinian women mourn the death of loved ones in Israeli bombings in the Shati camp, at a hospital in Gaza, June 14, 2024 © AFP – Omar AL QATTA

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

Several injured Palestinians, including children, were transported to this hospital, one of the few operating, at least, in the Palestinian territory. At the establishment's morgue, several bodies wrapped in blankets are placed on the ground.

A Palestinian woman holds the body of her brother, Eyad Hegazi, 10, who died of malnutrition according to his family, at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip , June 14, 2024 © AFP – Bashar TALEB

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

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 8,000 children under the age of five years 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 five,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Wednesday.

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

In central and northern Gaza, Israeli warplanes targeted “terrorist structures or cells,” she added.< /p>

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– Biden blames Hamas –

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

US President Joe Biden during a press conference on the sidelines of the G7, June 13, 2024 in Savelletri, Italy © AFP – Mandel NGAN

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

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

< p>A truce plan in Gaza announced on May 31 by American 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 densely populated areas of Gaza, the release 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 Hamas is defeated and all hostages are freed.

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.

Black smoke rises after a fire caused by an Israeli airstrike on Jennata, southern Lebanon, June 14, 2024 © AFP – Mahmoud AL-ZAYYAT

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 in Gaza.

– Warning sirens –

Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, two years later the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from this Palestinian territory which it occupied for 38 years. This movement is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.

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

Firefighters deploy to extinguish a fire in the Upper Galilee in northern Israel, caused by the fall of rockets fired from southern Lebanon, on June 14, 2024 © AFP – Jalaa MAREY

In northern Israel, rocket warning sirens sounded Friday, with police reporting that “about 35 projectiles” fired from Lebanon landed near the towns of Kiryat Shmona and Kfar Szold. A “number” of projectiles were intercepted and no one was injured in the attacks, the same source said.

Overnight, Israeli strikes killed two civilians in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese National Agency, after Hezbollah rocket and drone attacks on military targets in northern Israel.

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