The toll of the war between Israel and Hamas continues to rise precipitously, with thousands of deaths recorded in total, on the fifth day of the surprise attack launched by the Palestinian Islamist movement from Gaza.
The death toll from the Hamas offensive against Israel has risen to 1,200 deaths on the Israeli side, the Israeli army spokesperson said Wednesday morning. At least 30 people were killed and hundreds injured by hundreds of Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday, a Hamas government official said Wednesday.
The course of the offensive
Hamas, in power since 2007 in the Gaza Strip and sworn enemy of Israel, launched its offensive on Saturday at dawn, in the middle of Shabbat, the Jewish weekly rest, and 50 years and one day after the start of the war Arab-Israeli in 1973. He said he fired 5,000 rockets into Israel while his fighters used explosives and bulldozers to breach the barrier separating Gaza from Israeli territory, attacking military positions and civilians in the streets. Aboard vehicles, boats and even motorized paragliders, the fighters infiltrated urban areas of Israel like Ashkelon, Sderot and Ofakim, about twenty kilometers from the Gaza Strip, a poor enclave populated by 2, 3 million inhabitants.
Hamas seized Israeli military equipment and took some 150 civilians and soldiers hostage. Its fighters notably attacked a music festival attended by hundreds of Israelis near Kibbutz Reim, close to Gaza, killing some 250 people, according to an Israeli NGO.
Israel’s response
“What Hamas will experience will be difficult and terrible […]we are going to change the Middle East”, declared Monday the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu who calls for the formation of a “government of national unity”. The Israeli army, which counted more than 3,000 Palestinian shots , launched Operation “Iron Sabre” on Saturday, carrying out airstrikes and destroying buildings presented as Hamas “command centers” in Gaza. The terrorist movement announced that two of its senior officials had been killed by Israeli army strikes More than 260,000 Palestinians have been displaced inside Gaza because of the strikes, according to the UN.
3771-COVER-The Hamas attack and Israel’s response
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Israel has imposed a “total siege” on the Gaza Strip since Monday and announced that it had deployed tens of thousands of soldiers in the south of the country who fought against infiltrated fighters. He also strives to save Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. Furthermore, the Israeli authorities decided to evacuate residents from around Gaza and ordered the “immediate” shutdown of the water supply to the Gaza Strip, or 10% of the territory’s annual water consumption.
Israeli warplanes bombed an Islamic university in the Gaza Strip linked to the Palestinian movement Hamas on Wednesday, a campus official and an AFP correspondent said.
How many dead and missing?
More than 1,200 people have been killed in Israel since the offensive. On the Palestinian side, 900 people were killed, according to local authorities. Furthermore, Israel announced Tuesday that it had found around 1,500 bodies of Hamas fighters on its soil and an NGO claimed that more than 100 people had been killed in a single kibbutz in southern Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday evening that Hamas’s attack on Israel was “savagery not seen since the Holocaust,” during a telephone interview with US President Joe Biden.
Eighteen Thais, fourteen Americans, ten Nepalese, seven Argentinians, eight Frenchmen, two Ukrainians, two Russians, one Cambodian, two British, one Cambodian and one Canadian were killed in the Hamas offensive, according to authorities in their countries . Paris also announced a “special flight” Air France “this Thursday” to repatriate French nationals from Israel.
Israel has acknowledged that nearly 150 Israeli civilians and soldiers were kidnapped. Many foreign nationals are missing. Four of the hostages held by Hamas were killed in Israeli strikes, the Palestinian movement said. Eight Palestinian journalists have also died in Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since Saturday, according to the Palestinian press union.
What Hamas says
Hamas threatened Monday evening to execute Israeli hostages in response to strikes on the Gaza Strip. “Every time our people are targeted without warning, it will result in the execution of one of the civilian hostages […] The enemy does not understand humanitarian and ethical language, so we are going to speak to them in a language that they understand,” he threatened. The Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that they had launched the offensive to “put an end to the crimes of the occupation”. Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, annexed the eastern part of Jerusalem and has imposed a strict blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2007.
“We are on the verge of achieving a great victory,” said Ismaïl Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas, at the start of the offensive. The movement called on “resistance fighters in the occupied West Bank” as well as “Arab and Muslim nations” to join its fight.
A “second front”?
“Deeply concerned,” the United States warned Lebanese Hezbollah on Monday evening not to open a “second front” against Israel. Hezbollah, Israel’s nemesis, announced the death of three of its members by Israeli bombings in southern Lebanon. He later said he had bombed two Israeli barracks.
Earlier on Monday, the “Al-Quds Brigades”, the military branch of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which claims to support Hamas, claimed responsibility for an infiltration operation into Israeli territory from Lebanon. For its part, the Israeli army indicated that it had “killed several armed suspects who had infiltrated Israeli territory from Lebanese territory.”
On Tuesday, salvos of rockets were fired from southern Lebanon towards Israel, the official Lebanese agency said, before the Israeli army announced that it had responded. According to the National News Agency (ANI), “salvos of rockets were fired from the Qleilé plain in southern Lebanon towards the Galilee” in northern Israel. Hamas’ military wing claimed responsibility for the shooting. And in the north, the Israeli army struck Syria in response to rocket fire.
Reactions around the world
The United States began sending military aid to Israel and moving its carrier strike group closer to the Mediterranean. The head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken will visit Jordan in addition to Israel, during his trip to the Middle East scheduled for Wednesday to Friday. For its part, the UN recalled that Israel’s total siege of the Gaza Strip is “prohibited” by international humanitarian law. The European Union and the Gulf Cooperation Council pleaded on Tuesday for “sustainable financial support” to the Palestinians, following a joint meeting of their foreign ministers in Oman. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar say they are increasing contacts to put an end to the escalation.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in an interview broadcast on France 2 on Tuesday evening, accused Russia of “providing its support, in one way or another, to the operations carried out by Hamas” in Israel.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, for his part, considered that the conflict demonstrated the “failure” of United States policy in the Middle East, deeming the creation of a Palestinian state “necessary”. Iran has placed itself at the forefront of supporting the Hamas offensive, while rejecting accusations of its involvement. The head of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, assured that his organization rejected violence “on both sides”. Arab foreign ministers will meet on Wednesday at the Arab League headquarters in Cairo.