Israel redoubles attacks on Gaza despite Blinken's request to reduce damage to civilians

He asked for it on Tuesday in Tel Aviv in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and he reiterated it this Wednesday in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian authority, before the Palestinian president, Mahmud Abbas. The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, calls on Israel to reduce the damage to civilians in its attacks in the Gaza Strip, while calling for the entry of humanitarian aid to be expedited for a desperate population after three months of bombing. Israeli troops, however, have redoubled operations in the center and south of the coastal enclave, despite the fact that the Ministry of Defense announced last week a new phase focused on strategic objectives and without massive attacks.

After having declared Hamas' military structure in the north dismantled, the Armed Forces are concentrating the attacks in Maghazi (center of the Strip) and Khan Yunis (south), where this Wednesday they intensively bombed more than 150 targets and discovered 15 tunnels of the Islamist militia in Gaza, with a toll of around 150 dead as of midday. Nearly 90% of the territory's 2.3 million inhabitants have been displaced by the war and are crammed into inhumane conditions in the southernmost part. The army has released leaflets for the population of the center to evacuate the area in the direction of Rafah, on the Egyptian border.

In that same area, 15 members of the Nofal clan lost their lives in a bombing. As verified by the Reuters agency in a hospital morgue, most of the bodies wrapped in shrouds were children. The World Health Organization (WHO) has been forced to suspend its seventh aid mission to Gaza for three weeks. “The obstacles to transporting it are almost insurmountable,” those responsible for the UN agency warned. “People queue for hours to get some water, which is not even drinkable, or bread,” lamented the director general of the WHO, Tedros Ghebreyesus, who recalled that only a dozen health centers are partially functioning.

Blinken also defended the creation of a Palestinian State in Ramallah, but his demand for the constitution of a cabinet of technocrats, without the presence of political leaders, did not have an echo in the rais Abbas, who refuses to approve a change of government while the Gaza war continues. The US wants a reformed Palestinian National Authority (PNA) to take charge of the Strip after the end of the conflict. Israel only proposes a limited Palestinian administration, dependent on neighborhood mayors and clan patriarchs. The Secretary of State also demanded that the Israeli Government transfer to the Ramallah Executive the taxes that Israel collects in his name and that have been blocked since the outbreak of the conflict on October 7. Blinken has also assured that Israel has accepted that a “UN evaluation mission” visits the north of the Strip to prepare for the return of the population displaced by the war, according to Agence France Presse.

Mahmud Abbas, 88 years old and in power since 2005 without having undergone presidential elections since then, expressed to Blinken his concern about the forced displacement of the Palestinian population and the risk of separation of the two Palestinian territories in a future State. , in which Gaza, which has been exclusively controlled by Hamas for 17 years, is “essential.” He also called for an international peace conference to end Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories, including East Jerusalem.

“The president will not allow the Palestinian people to be displaced from the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jerusalem,” he was quoted as saying. Wafa official agency in response to the statements of members of the Israeli Government, “who seek the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land.” This Wednesday, the head of American diplomacy continued his tour of the Middle East heading to Bahrain and Egypt, in his attempt to contain the expansion of the Gaza war to the north, on the Lebanese border, and to the south, in the strategic trade route of the Red Sea. During his stopover in Manama, capital of Bahrain, Blinken declared that Abbas is “committed” to reforming the ANP to “assume responsibility in Gaza” and unify it with the West Bank.

Massive Houthi attack in the Red Sea

The United States Armed Forces stated early on Wednesday that they had shot down around twenty drones and three missiles in a massive attack launched by the Yemeni Houthi rebels against merchant ships in the Red Sea, according to the Efe agency. The Pentagon has indicated that the devices were launched from rebel-controlled areas of Yemen towards international shipping routes, without any injuries or damage being reported. The Secretary of State for Defense of the United Kingdom, Grant Shapps, has assured that the Houthi attack has been “the largest in decades.”

On the northern front, Israel claimed responsibility for the death in an airstrike of Ali Hussein Barj, commander of the drone unit of the pro-Iran Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon, according to the chief spokesman of the Armed Forces, Rear Admiral Daniel. Hagari. And in the West Bank, meanwhile, the Israeli army admitted this Wednesday that one of its vehicles had “unintentionally” run over the body of a Palestinian during armed clashes in Tulkarem, on the northwestern dividing line with Israel, AFP reports, according to a video widely spread on social networks. The images show a military vehicle stopping in front of a body lying on the ground before taking off again and running over him with its wheels. The Israeli army frequently undertakes operations in the West Bank, a territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Since the start of the war in Gaza, violence has skyrocketed to levels not seen since the Second Intifada (2000-2005).

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