Israel has rejected the idea of ”humanitarian pauses” demanded by the United States in the Gaza Strip, and is continuing its offensive begun almost a month ago against Hamas, with an “intensified ground operation” and strikes one of which targeted an ambulance. After his meeting with American Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday in Tel Aviv, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the idea of ”a temporary truce” without releasing the hostages in the hands of Hamas, numbering at least 240.
If the United States is against a ceasefire, it has repeatedly called for pauses in fighting in the face of the catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, subject to Israeli bombardments since the Hamas attack on October 7 and a total siege declared two days later. For a senior White House official, the release of the hostages “would require a very significant pause in the conflict.” He spoke on Friday evening of “very serious discussions” in progress.
The main information:
- Israel has rejected the idea of ”humanitarian pauses” demanded by the United States in the Gaza Strip.
- An ambulance was targeted by IDF strikes and reportedly left 15 dead.
- The UN chief said he was “horrified” by the strike.
Ambulance targeted by IDF strikes
The statement came as the Israeli army admitted hitting an ambulance outside Gaza’s main hospital, al-Chifa, because the vehicle it said was carrying Hamas members. This assertion was denied by the Palestinian Islamist movement, classified as a “terrorist organization” by Israel, the United States and the European Union.
According to the Hamas Ministry of Health and the Palestinian Red Crescent, the strike left 15 dead and 60 injured, including civilians in front of the hospital entrance. They claimed the ambulance was part of a convoy transporting several injured people to Egypt. An AFP correspondent saw several bodies and injured people next to a damaged ambulance. The UN chief said he was “horrified” by the strike, adding that the conflict between Israel and Hamas must “stop”. “The images of the bodies scattered in the street in front of the hospital are heartbreaking,” added Antonio Guterres in a statement.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also said he was “deeply shocked”, recalling that “patients, caregivers, establishments and ambulances must be protected at all times”. Another strike “targeting” a school transformed into a makeshift camp for displaced people in the northern Gaza Strip killed 20 people and injured dozens more, according to the Hamas health ministry.
Israeli troops have “intensified the ground operation in Gaza City, following the completion of the encirclement of the area”, said spokesperson Daniel Hagari on Friday evening. The bombings razed entire neighborhoods of the city.
420 humanitarian aid trucks have arrived in the enclave since the start of the conflict
“There was no warning, the house was targeted by a direct strike. It is completely destroyed,” Hamad Hamada, a 28-year-old resident, told AFP. “Three children from the same family were taken out, the damage is enormous and all the other residents are still under the rubble.” For almost a month, the 2.4 million inhabitants of the besieged Gaza Strip have been living under bombardment by Israel, which has also suspended supplies of water, food and electricity.
Since October 21, and the very partial reopening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, some 420 trucks of humanitarian aid have arrived, according to the UN on Friday. The territory had already been subject to an Israeli land, air and sea blockade since 2007.
According to a report published Friday by Hamas, in power in this 362 km2 territory since 2007, 9,227 people, including 3,826 children, were killed in Israeli strikes which mainly hit the north of the Gaza Strip, where Israel has promised to annihilate Hamas and its command. But they were also directed to the south of the territory. “The reality is that we cannot even provide them (the Palestinians) with security under the UN flag,” Thomas White, head of the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees, lamented by video from Gaza ( UNRWA).
In France, President Emmanuel Macron announced a “humanitarian conference” on November 9 in Paris, also calling for a humanitarian truce, “because the fight against terrorism does not justify sacrificing civilians.” Adding to concerns about the fate of civilians, Israel began on Friday to send back to the Gaza Strip, despite the bombings, thousands of Palestinian workers who had been stuck on its soil for almost a month.
The flow of these exhausted workers – 3,026 according to the UN count, which reports mistreatment during their detention – began to cross the Karem Abou Salem border post (called Kerem Shalom on the Israeli side), between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
“We’ve been in prison for 25 days and today they brought us here, we don’t know at all what’s happening in Gaza,” Nidal Abed told AFP. On Friday, 17 wounded and 448 foreigners, including 96 children, were able to leave Gaza towards Egypt via the Rafah border post, the only window on the world for the territory, according to the Egyptian Ministry of Health. The day before, sixty injured Palestinians and some 400 foreigners had left Gaza via this crossing point.
In Israel, at least 1,400 people have been killed according to the authorities since the start of the war, the majority of them civilians massacred on the day of the Hamas attack, of violence and on a scale unprecedented since the creation of Israel. in 1948. The Israeli army reported 341 soldiers killed since October 7.
High tensions on the Lebanese border
In the north, near the Lebanese border, the Israeli army “struck anti-tank fire positions of Hezbollah and a military post of Hezbollah”, ally of Hamas and supported by Iran, in response “to the firing of a anti-tank missile” Friday from Lebanese territory, said Daniel Hagari. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accused the United States of being “entirely responsible” for this war, in his first speech since the start of the conflict. He also warned Israel against the “stupidity” of an attack on Lebanon, adding that stopping the “aggression against Gaza” would prevent regional conflict.
Faced with daily exchanges of fire on the Israeli-Lebanese border, Nahor Duani, a resident of Kiryat Shmona, said he had confidence in his government and his army. “They’re hard at work, I just hope it calms down soon.” These clashes have left 72 dead in southern Lebanon since October 7, according to an AFP count, including 54 Hezbollah fighters. Six soldiers and a civilian were killed on the Israeli side, according to authorities.
The war has also exacerbated tensions in the occupied West Bank, where more than 140 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 by fire from Israeli soldiers or settlers, according to the Palestinian Authority.