Four days have passed since Israel killed Yahia Sinwar, Hamas leader and accused of orchestrating the October 7, 2023 attacksand three since he announced his death. Up to 87 dead and missing is the toll of the latest bombing in the Strip, according to local health sources from the Hamas Government. This attack, of a magnitude that had not been seen for months, is just proof that these days, the Israeli army has taken the opportunity to toughen the offensive on the north of the Strip –and also Lebanon–. “The nightmare in Gaza intensifies” with “horrible scenes,” denounced the UN envoy for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, in a statement condemning this bombing.
All this happens despite the fact that many, inside and outside Israel, saw the end of the Islamist leader, the most wanted man, as an opportunity to face a possible end to the conflict and an open door to a ceasefire. But, with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the helmthe deaths occur throughout the entire Palestinian Mediterranean enclave, in what Israel continues to consider a military operation against the Palestinian armed resistance. The deaths in the last year exceed 42,500 people, most of them women and children, and the injured amount to almost 100,000.
These 87 fatalities and missing persons in the northern area of Gaza, as well as some 40 injured, occurred on the night of Saturday to Sunday. It occurred after an aerial operation on several residential buildings in the town of Beita Lahia, one of those that has been suffering a ground and air offensive by the occupation troops for almost three weeks. In that area, it is estimated, according to local official sources, that more than half a thousand Gazans have lost their lives since, with the arrival of October, the military stepped on the accelerator in an attempt, as military spokespersons explain, to prevent Hamas and other local groups that they have been fighting for a year rearm and reorganize.
The Ezedin al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, have released images dated Friday in which, they claim, their men appear facing Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles with grenade launchers, machine guns and rifles among the ruins of the Hamas refugee camp. Yabalia.
The Israeli authorities have not denied that their army is responsible for the bombing of Beit Lahia, but they doubt that the number of victims is so high and they claim to be investigating what happened.
“Almost absence of humanitarian aid”
The UN envoy, Tor Wennesland, warns that “this takes place after weeks of operations that have been intensifying with the result of dozens of civilian victims and the almost total absence of humanitarian aid for the population in the north,” he said in his statement. It describes “relentless Israeli attacks and an increasingly worsening humanitarian crisis” while calling for the release of hostages still in the Strip, an end to the displacement of Palestinians and the protection of civilians.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, videos of the recovery of bodies and wounded in the midst of the destruction of Beit Lahia have been published. It is among those rubble where the Palestinian authorities believe there are still people to be rescued.
The Israeli army maintains its strategy and reported this Sunday that in the last few hours it has sent some 5,000 inhabitants of the north to the south within its forced evacuation plan, considered illegal under international humanitarian law. He warns the residents that if they do not agree to leave an area that they consider to be a combat zone, they may become targets of the military. This is a trend that has been repeated throughout the entire conflict, which has led to the majority of the 2.3 million inhabitants of the Strip being displaced. The United Nations estimated at the beginning of the month that some 400,000 people remained in the north without access to the most basic things such as water, food or medicine.
The forum that brings together the families of the hostages, of whom 101 remain captive in Gaza, maintains the level of pressure for Israel to prioritize achieving a ceasefire agreement ahead of military operations, as reflected in the commitment of Netanyahu. During an appearance on Sunday afternoon, the representatives of the kidnapped people are going to “demand” the Israeli president to explain how he is going to take advantage of the achievement of having eliminated Sinwar to ensure that those who remain in Gaza, although estimates that around half could already be dead, could return.
Israel has announced an airdrop of humanitarian aid packages over Khan Younis, the large city in southern Gaza. At the same time, the United Nations has denounced that it cannot confront the humanitarian crisis of the current scale in that territory “with only a few unreliable and difficult to access crossing points” from the roads surrounding the enclave. That’s why, “it is necessary to open many routes for critical supplies and services”claims the United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA, according to its acronym in English). And, with this request, they are not referring to the air route, but to the land route, which is the one they consider most accessible, practical and cheap.
One of the main objectives of the Israeli occupation forces in the north of the Strip continues to be hospitals. Only in the three main areas of that area, Kamal Adwan, Al Awda and Indonesian, there are around 350 patients trapped, including pregnant women and people who have undergone surgery, warns Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in a statement. on Saturday. “We call on Israeli forces to immediately end their attacks on hospitals in northern Gaza,” demands Anna Halford, MSF emergency coordinator in the Strip.
