Total isolation. After 21 days of war between Israel and Hamas, the Gaza Strip was left without internet or telephone service late this Friday under endless angry bombings.. Shortly before, Israel announced that it will immediately intensify the ground offensive that it has been announcing for days.. The spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Daniel Hagari, indicated that the Air Force was attacking underground infrastructure used by “terrorists”. “We are prepared for defense in all areas (land, sea and air),” he added.
“It is an attempt to darken Gaza,” said Palestinian Prime Minister Mohamed Shtayé, who asked the world to act.. “It will result in a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions that history will judge,” said Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, who described the conflict as “senseless slaughter.”
In the early hours of Thursday and Friday, the Israeli Army carried out a sort of rehearsal in “selective raids” against Hamas targets, which responded with several missiles, some of them hitting residential buildings in Tel Aviv.. Meanwhile, the Arab countries attached to Gaza are already stepping on the accelerator and preparing for total war. Territories like Lebanon could become important pieces of a broader board involving several countries in the region and US objectives.
The spokesman for the Israeli Army, Daniel Hagari, warned this Friday that the small-scale operations that had been carried out in the Strip were a rehearsal for a large “raid”. These days have not been the first time that Netanyahu's soldiers entered the Palestinian enclave. On October 14, in the middle of the 24-hour period for the population to move to the south of the Strip, the tanks crossed the border to recover hostage bodies.. Now, things change and the war intensifies.
Israel is not the only country that is already prepared. Gaza residents remain on alert in case they have to intervene. All eyes are on the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah and the possibility that Lebanon will become a second open front in the conflict, but in parallel other pro-Iranian militias have also begun to attack US bases in Iraq or Syria, as well as Israeli territory itself.
These are the first calls for attention from the so-called Islamic Resistance, an informal alliance led by Iran that, along with the Palestinian factions themselves, also includes Hezbollah, Syria and a myriad of armed formations based in Iraq or Yemen.
With the intention of deterring a regional escalation, the United States announced this Friday the mobilization of 900 troops in the Middle East to reinforce the protection capacity of its troops, while attacking facilities related to Iran's Revolutionary Guard in Syria.
A ceasefire
For its part, the terrorist group Hamas asked this Friday for a ceasefire to be able to free the Israeli hostages, an idea that the United States supports.. Around 224 people were kidnapped in the attack on October 7 that began at the tragic music festival. “Hundreds of citizens and dozens of fighters from various Palestinian factions entered the occupied territories in 1948 and captured dozens of people, most of them civilians.. “We need time to find them in the Gaza Strip and free them,” said Abu Hamid, a member of a Hamas delegation that visited Moscow on Thursday. “Israeli bombing has killed 50 prisoners so far,” he added.
Hamid's announcement of the death of prisoners is not in vain. Israel's response against Gaza is, for part of the international community, “excessive”. The United Nations Office for Human Rights warned this Friday that Israel's “collective punishment of the entire population of Gaza” is a war crime that must “end immediately.” “For almost three weeks, Palestinian civilians have suffered incessant bombardments from Israel by air, land and sea; thousands of them have died, some among the remains of destroyed homes, mosques or bakeries,” the office spokesperson said at a press conference. of the UN Ravina Shamdasani.
In turn, more than 600 NGOs joined together to call for an “immediate” ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave. “The events of the last week have brought us to the precipice of a humanitarian catastrophe and the world can no longer wait to act. “It is our collective responsibility,” the organizations said in a statement.
In this sense, the acting President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, expressed from Brussels his “legitimate doubt” that Israel is currently complying with International Law after seeing the “suffering” of the people of Gaza, in accordance with what was expressed with European authorities such as Charles Michel or Josep Borrell. The leader of the Executive insisted that we must work to “avoid a humanitarian catastrophe of unprecedented proportions.”
UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke again this Friday after Israel broke all relations with him and demanded his resignation. “The Gaza Strip is suffering an unprecedented avalanche of human suffering in the face of humanitarian aid that is arriving in dribs and drabs and for which everyone must assume their responsibilities,” he asserted. “It is the moment of truth. History is judging us all,” he added.
Humanitarian aid from Rafah
Furthermore, this Friday a first team of ten foreign doctors from the Red Cross loaded with water, food and medicine entered through the Egyptian Rafah crossing in the direction of the Strip along with a convoy made up of another ten trucks loaded with humanitarian aid, but without fuel, various sources reported.
Israel has systematically rejected the entry of fuel into Gaza despite appeals made in recent days by various actors in the international community, due to the collapse of essential services such as electricity and water.
So far, there are 84 trucks that have been able to access Gaza with help. Although nothing is enough. The number of victims in Palestinian territory has already reached 7,326, there are also 18,967 injured, according to figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health.. Among the deceased are 3,038 minors, 1,726 women and 414 elderly since the conflict broke out.
To the death toll due to Israel's bombings in Gaza, more than one hundred deaths are added in the West Bank due to the operations carried out by the Israeli Army and the Israeli deaths now exceed 1,400 and the hostages are 229.