A new wave of Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip has killed 21 people this Saturday and left 83 injured, according to the latest data released this Sunday by the Gaza Ministry of Health. It is one of the deadliest days in the enclave, but it threatens to become the new reality of the territory despite the existence of a ceasefire. Since the beginning of the ceasefire six weeks ago, Israel has killed 339 people in Gaza – most of them women, children and the elderly – according to Palestinian authorities.
Israel has justified the latest attacks as a response to infiltrations by armed men into Gazan territory controlled by Israeli troops, an action it has described as a . The militia accuses the Israeli authorities of “fabricating pretexts” to resume the offensive in the enclave, and demands that the United States, the main promoter of the agreement, “contain Israeli attempts to undermine it.”
The Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ratified this Sunday the military action of the day before. In statements made at a government meeting and released in a statement, the president anticipated that Israel will continue to put a “very high” price on the “numerous” violations of the agreement that he claims Hamas is committing in Gaza, and has asserted that the Israeli authorities do not require anyone’s permission to act militarily in the Strip or in Lebanon, where the Israeli army says it eliminated two Hezbollah fighters on Saturday. “We operate independently of everyone,” Netanyahu’s statement concludes. “These answers go through the Ministry of Defense and ultimately reach me. Israel is responsible for its own security.”
On Saturday, Israeli troops began a series of attacks by bombing a vehicle in Rimal, a neighborhood crowded with displaced people in Gaza City. The missile and the subsequent fire left at least five dead and more than 20 injured, most of them children, according to the director of al Shifa Hospital, Rami Mhanna. Another attack in the Al Naser neighborhood, west of Gaza City, killed four people.
Israeli hostilities were also deployed over the center of the enclave. The troops fired shells at two houses in the towns of Deir el Balah and in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Al Awda Hospital, located in the area, received five bodies, including those of two children and a woman. Also 38 injured, of which 14 were minors, as confirmed to this newspaper by Mohamed Salha, a person in charge of the medical center.
Minutes after the attack, a statement from Netanyahu released Saturday afternoon accused Hamas of “sending a terrorist” to attack Israeli soldiers. “In response, we have eliminated five Hamas terrorists,” he said, apparently alluding to the attacks that Israel had launched in Gaza just before.
In parallel, Israeli troops reported several incidents related to the infiltration of terrorists into areas controlled by Israel, and reported Israeli fire actions of varying degrees. In some cases, such hostilities were limited to “eliminating the threat.” In others, the troops would have reacted with “precise bombings” against Hamas agents and military assets throughout the Strip, a military statement said this Sunday.
The successive lightning offensives perpetrated in Gaza by Israel – which continues to fail in its humanitarian obligations, denying two million Palestinians food and shelter – nullify among Gazans the notion of peace promoted by US President Donald Trump. Last Wednesday, the Israeli army killed 30 people in 24 hours. On October 29, the deadliest day since the White House proclaimed the end of the war, an Israeli offensive killed 104 people in one day.
