More than 20 dead in Israeli raids on Gaza, according to emergency services

Photo: Eyad Baba Agence France-Presse Smoke rises into the sky after an Israeli strike in Nusseirat, in the central Gaza Strip, on Saturday.

France Media Agency in the Gaza Strip

Published at 9:15 p.m.

• Middle East

At least 24 people were killed by Israeli strikes on Saturday in the Gaza Strip, said the emergency services of the Palestinian territory devastated by more than nine months of war between Israel and Hamas.

The Palestinian Islamist movement, whose attack on Israel on October 7 sparked the war, saw in these strikes a “response” from Israel to the opinion issued the day before by the International Court of Justice which ruled “unlawful” the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967.

A decision described as “historic” by the Palestinians and “deceitful” by Israel.

On Saturday, the Israeli army claimed to have “eliminated terrorists” in strikes and fighting in the Gaza Strip, where Israel is besieging the approximately 2.4 million inhabitants.

< p>According to emergency services in Gaza, at least 24 dead in Israeli raids.

A strike hit the Nousseirat camp (center), killing two women and a child, said an official at Al-Awda hospital.

In the same hospital, a baby was saved from the womb of its mother, who was also killed in Nousseirat after a strike.

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“Barbarism”

“Two of my daughters and four members of my family are dead,” Manar said Abou Sidra, whose house was hit by a strike in Nousseirat. “It’s barbarism. We have no links with the [armed] organizations, so why target us ? »

Civil Defense reported nine deaths in strikes in Gaza City (north).

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“We were sleeping in our apartments and suddenly we heard a boom! Our apartments were hit, everyone was looking for their children,” testifies Hassan Ayyad, a resident of Gaza City.

Al-Awda hospital said it had admitted four children injured while playing on the roof of their home after an Israeli drone strike in Al-Bureij (central Israel). Some required amputations, the hospital said.

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 116 are still being held in Gaza, 42 of whom have died, according to the army.

In response, Israel promised to destroy Hamas, which it considers a terrorist organization, as did the United States and the European Union, and launched an air and then ground offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far killed 38,919 people, mostly civilians, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Gaza government, led by the Islamist movement.

Later in the day, new demonstrations against Benjamin Netanyahu's government and to call for an agreement allowing the release of the hostages were planned in Israel.

Benjamin Netanyahu believes that 'increasing “military pressure” on Hamas is a way to “advance” an agreement for the release of the hostages.

The war has resulted in the displacement of more than half the population in the small territory threatened with famine and where no place is safe, according to the UN.

Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007, two years after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from this territory which it occupied for 38 years. Before besieging Gaza on October 9, Israel had imposed a blockade on the poor and overpopulated territory since 2007.

“Not enough”< /h2>

As the war rages, Mr. Netanyahu is scheduled to travel to Washington and speak to Congress on Wednesday. He is expected to meet President Joe Biden if the latter recovers from COVID-19.

On Friday, the head of American diplomacy, Antony Blinken, reaffirmed American determination to reach a ceasefire agreement.

But this is “not enough”, it is “essential to ensure that we have a plan” for the post-war in Gaza, “for governance, security, humanitarian aid, reconstruction,” he said.

Washington reaffirmed its commitment to the two-state solution, Palestinian and Israeli, for a settlement of the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, after the adoption by the Israeli Parliament of a resolution opposing the creation of a state Palestinian whose authority would extend to the West Bank and Gaza.

On Israel's northern front, in Lebanon, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, announced having fired more rockets into northern Israel “in response” to an Israeli strike.

An Israeli strike followed, targeting an ammunition depot in the town of Adloun from southern Lebanon, leaving three injured on Saturday, the official Lebanese agency announced in the evening.