After more than 200 days of clashes, the war in Gaza showed no sign of respite on Wednesday with strikes in the Palestinian territory while the American Senate gave the green light to billions in military aid to Israel in the fight against Hamas.
Information to remember
⇒ The United States will build a pier to transport humanitarian aid
⇒ US approves $13 billion in aid to Israel
⇒ Israel says it wants to move Palestinians from Rafah to continue its offensive
An offensive on Rafah would be “apocalyptic”
Early Wednesday, hospital and security sources in Gaza reported Israeli airstrikes in the sectors of Nousseirat (center) and Rafah, “the last” major Hamas stronghold according to Israel, located at the southern tip of the territory, near the ‘Egypt.
According to Egyptian officials, cited by the Wall Street Journal, Israel is preparing to move them to the nearby town of Khan Younes, in particular, where it plans to set up shelters and food distribution centers. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said he was studying a “series of measures to take in preparation for operations in Rafah, in particular on the evacuation of civilians.”
This evacuation operation would last two to three weeks and would be carried out in coordination with the United States, Egypt and other Arab countries such as the United Arab Emirates, according to these officials. For Jan Egeland, secretary general of the NGO Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), an offensive on Rafah, “the largest camp for displaced people on earth,” would lead to an “apocalyptic situation.”
Mass graves discovered in Khan Younes
Before a possible operation on Rafah, the Israeli army was deployed in the city of Gaza (north), then in Khan Younes. However, the UN on Tuesday called for an international investigation into mass graves discovered in the two main hospitals of these cities, al-Chifa in Gaza and Nasser in Khan Younes, emphasizing the need to put an end to the current “climate of impunity”.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, said he was “horrified by the destruction” of these two hospitals “and by the announced discovery of mass graves in and around these sites”. Gaza Civil Defense said it had exhumed since Saturday 340 bodies of people killed and buried by Israeli forces in mass graves inside the Nasser hospital.
13 billion in American aid to Israel
In Washington, the American Senate approved $13 billion in military assistance to Israel, in particular to strengthen its “Iron Dome” anti-missile shield deployed on its borders.
The American plan also includes more than nine billion dollars to “respond to the urgent need for humanitarian aid in Gaza and other vulnerable populations around the world”, particularly in Sudan, also at war for more than a year, confirming thus a vote this weekend by the House of Representatives, another branch of Congress.
A pier to transport humanitarian aid
In addition to the heavy human toll and massive destruction, the population of Gaza is facing a risk of famine, according to the UN. The United States will begin construction of a pier in Gaza “very soon” to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory bombed and besieged by Israel, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.
In recent days, Israel, which controls the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip, has increased the number of aid trucks allowed into the territory. Israel and the UN do not always agree on the count of these aid trucks, but the head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, welcomed a record number of trucks entered the territory in a single day.
“Where there is a will, there is a way,” he wrote Tuesday evening on X, after asking the UN Security Council for an independent investigation “into the 180 UNRWA employees killed ” in the war. The Council is also due to discuss aid to Gaza on Wednesday.