Thirty dead in Israeli raids on Gaza, strikes in Yemen and Lebanon

Israeli strikes left at least thirty dead this weekend in the Gaza Strip, besieged and devastated by more than nine months of a war that extends far and wide part of the region, in Yemen and Lebanon.

In Yemen, the strategic port of Hodeida was targeted on Saturday by Israeli airstrikes which left three people dead and more than 80 injured, Houthi rebels said on Sunday, two days after a drone attack which left one dead in Tel- Aviv led by these Iranian-backed insurgents.

And on Sunday, the Israeli army indicated that it had intercepted a missile coming from Yemen and “which was approaching Israel”.

On Israel's northern front, in Lebanon, Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, announced that it had fired new rockets into northern Israel “in response” to an Israeli strike. An Israeli strike followed, targeting an ammunition depot in Adloun, a town in southern Lebanon, wounding three on Saturday, the official Lebanese agency announced in the evening.

In the Gaza Strip, where Israel is besieging some 2.4 million inhabitants, the Israeli army claimed on Saturday to have “eliminated terrorists” in strikes and battles.

A photo provided by the Houthi rebels' Media Center shows a huge fire after strikes on the Houthi-held port city of Hodeida in western Yemen on July 20, 2024 © AFP – –

According to Gaza Civil Defense, an organization dependent on Hamas, there have been at least 24 deaths in Israeli raids. During the night, she updated this toll, with six deaths in Bureij, six in Armida and one more in Nousseirat, bringing the weekend's toll to more than thirty deaths.

< p>The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, whose attack on Israel on October 7 triggered the war, saw in these strikes on Gaza a “response” from Israel to the opinion rendered the day before by the International Court of Justice. justice (ICJ) which ruled “illicit” the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories since 1967.

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

A strike hit the Nousseirat camp (center), killing two women and a child, said an official at al-Awda hospital. In this same hospital, a baby was saved from the womb of its mother, also killed in Nousseirat.

– “Barbary” –

The Gaza Strip © AFP – Sylvie HUSSON, Sabrina BLANCHARD

“Two of my daughters and four members of my family died,” said Manar Abou Sidra, whose house was hit in Nousseirat. “It's barbarism. We have no connection with the (armed) organizations, so why target us?”

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

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

On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an attack unprecedented in the south of Israel, which led to the death of 1,195 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count established from official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 116 are still being held in Gaza, of whom 42 are dead, according to the army.

Palestinians surround the body of a person killed by a strike in the courtyard of a hospital in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, July 20, 2024 © AFP – Eyad BABA

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

The war has led to the displacement of more than half of the population in the small territory threatened by 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” –

A young Palestinian man walks barefoot near stagnant sewage in Deir el-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, July 19, 2024. © AFP – Bashar TALEB

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

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

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

Washington has 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 Palestinian state including authority would extend to the West Bank and Gaza.

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