Israel warned the population again this Saturday to leave the northern Gaza Strip and announced the death of two important Hamas military leaders, while continuing to bomb the Palestinian enclave in response to the Islamist movement’s bloody offensive a week ago, which has left thousands dead.
On the eighth day of a war that has left thousands dead, Israel announced the death of two Hamas military leaders: Murad Abu Murad, “responsible for a large part of the deadly offensive” against Israel, according to the army; and a “commander of the ‘Nukhba’ unit” (“elite”, in Arabic), “which led the attack against Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip.”
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Meanwhile, the deadly and destructive bombings against the Palestinian territory do not stop.
More than 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians and including 724 children, according to local authorities, died in the Gaza Strip, a territory located between Israel and Egypt and subject to an Israeli blockade since 2006. Of those victims, 324 died between Friday and Saturday, according to authorities.
More than 1,300 buildings in the Gaza Strip were completely destroyed, reported the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA, for its acronym in English).
Some 5,540 homes “were destroyed” in these buildings and another 3,750 suffered such serious damage that they cannot be inhabited, he said, one week after the intense bombing by the Israeli army following the bloody offensive by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
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From the Gaza Strip, Hamas launched a barrage of rockets against central Israel in the morning, and in the southern Strip, In the town of Jan Yunes, an injured girl was rescued from the rubble, an AFP photographer confirmed.
The Israeli army also confirmed this Saturday that it had identified “more than 120 civilians” held in Gaza, among the nearly 150 hostages captured by Hamas, which threatened to execute them. Hundreds of people remain missing, and efforts to identify bodies continue.
At least 1,300 Israelis, mostly civilians, have been killed since the October 7 attack, which traumatized Israel.
According to the Islamist movement Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, seventeen hostages – some foreigners – died as a result of Israeli bombings.
Fears over Gaza evacuation
As the new ultimatum given by Israel to the inhabitants of Gaza City to leave their homes expires this Saturday at 4:00 p.m. local time and heading to the south of the Strip, the chaotic evacuation, by car and on foot, of a population of one million inhabitants continues, without the bombings having ceased at any time.
The Israeli Armed Forces have demanded that the inhabitants of Gaza City, a city of about 600,000 inhabitants, abandon their homes and take refuge in the south of Wadi Gaza, which marks approximately half of the Strip, a coastal enclave about 40 kilometers long and less than ten wide.
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On its Arabic channel on the
The Israeli army indicated that there was a “significant movement” of the population following its instructions but accused Hamas, which rejected the call for evacuation, of trying to prevent departures. Israel often accuses the Islamist movement of using civilians as human shields.
Since Friday, Thousands of inhabitants flee the north of the Strip, whether in trailers, donkeys, carts, motorcycles or by car, making their way through the rubble and destroyed buildings.
However, there are also those who refuse to leave: “the enemy wants to terrorize us and force us into exile, but we will resist,” said Abu Azzam, a resident of Gaza.
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According to the UN, more than 423,000 Palestinians had to leave their homes.
The Hamas attack and the war it unleashed has fueled fears that the conflict will expand and that a humanitarian catastrophe will occur in Gaza, which Israel deprives of water, electricity and food.
According to humanitarian organizations, Gaza City hospitals were given an ultimatum to evacuate the facilities, extended twice until 4:00 p.m.
“Even wars have rules,” UN Secretary General António Guterres recalled on Friday, calling for “immediate humanitarian access” to Gaza, currently under siege.
“The health system is on the brink of disaster” and “the morgues are overflowing,” warned Guterres.
This Saturday, also, The United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warned that more than 2 million people in the Gaza Strip are running out of drinking water. given the blocking of humanitarian aid from entering the enclave by Israel.
“It has become a matter of life and death. It is a duty: It is necessary to deliver fuel now to Gaza so that water is available for 2 million people,” UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini said in a statement.
“Fuel is the only way for people to have clean water. Otherwise, people will start dying from severe dehydration, including young children, the elderly and women. Water is now the last remaining lifeline. I appeal so that the siege on humanitarian assistance is lifted now,” requested the UNRWA representative.
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People will begin to die from severe dehydration, including young children, the elderly, and women.
The UN agency denounced that “humanitarian supplies have not been allowed to enter Gaza for a week,” so almost its entire population “is at risk.”
Drinking water “is running out” in the Strip, after its
water and the public network will stop working, while Gazans are being forced to “use dirty water from a few”, something that also increases the risk of contracting diseases.
Likewise, since October 11, Gaza suffers a power blackout, so water generators cannot operate for supply. Water is running out even at the UN base in the south of the Strip, where UNRWA has had to move its operations due to Israel’s ultimatum to Palestinians in the north of the enclave to evacuate south in the face of an imminent ground incursion. against the facilities and operations of the Islamist movement Hamas.
INTERNATIONAL EDITORIAL
*With AFP and EFE
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