Israel carried out new airstrikes on Thursday in the Gaza Strip where the army is at war against Palestinian Hamas, as the international community fears the promised response from Israeli authorities to Iran’s unprecedented weekend attack last.
The European Union, which called on “all parties to show the greatest restraint”, decided on Wednesday to impose new sanctions on Iran, targeting the producers of drones and missiles, devices used in the first direct attack carried out by Tehran, ally of Hamas, on Israeli soil.
At the same time, Israel continues its operation in the Gaza Strip, launched in response to the attack carried out on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza, which resulted in the death of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to a AFP assessment based on official Israeli data.
More than 250 people have been kidnapped and 129 remain held in Gaza, 34 of whom have died according to Israeli officials.
“Corpses everywhere”
During the night from Wednesday to Thursday, witnesses reported deadly Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, where the military offensive left 33,899 dead in more than six months, mainly civilians, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. Hamas.
Strikes took place in particular in the cities of Gaza, Khan Younes and Rafah (south), according to the territory’s Civil Defense.
“The bodies of eight people from the Ayyad family, including five children and two women, were discovered after a strike on their farm in the Al-Salam neighborhood,” in Rafah, according to the same source.
An AFP photographer saw people gathering around a huge crater Thursday morning after a bombing.
“I woke up to the sound of girls shouting “mom, mom (…) I ran and found children running out (…) there were dead bodies scattered everywhere,” he told the AFP Palestinian Jamalat Ramidan after a strike in Rafah, where there are a million and a half people displaced by the war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also maintaining his plan for a land offensive against Rafah, on the border with Egypt, which he presents as the last major bastion of Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007 and which Israel considers to be an organization terrorist as well as the United States and the European Union.
Iranian “messages” to Washington
The Israeli army said Thursday it had struck dozens of “targets” across the Gaza Strip in the past 24 hours, including “terrorists, observation posts and military structures.”
The war in the Gaza Strip has exacerbated tensions in the region between Israel and its allies such as the United States on the one hand and Hamas and its supporters such as Iran and Iranian Hezbollah on the other.
Iran said it launched its attack on Israel in response to a strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on 1er April, attributed to Israel, which killed seven members of the Revolutionary Guards, the ideological army of the Islamic Republic.
Israel, which said it foiled the attack carried out with 350 drones and missiles, almost all of which were intercepted by Israeli anti-aircraft defenses with allied countries, repeats that it will not go “unpunished”.
According to Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Mr Netanyahu decided not to implement plans for retaliatory strikes after discussions with US President Joe Biden, who is trying to avoid a direct Iran-Israel confrontation.
“There will be a response, but it will be different from what was initially planned,” a senior official told the channel on condition of anonymity. According to the American channel ABC, the Israeli government twice considered strikes against Iran without taking action.
The head of Iranian diplomacy Hossein Ami-Abdollahian declared for his part that his country had sent several “messages” to the United States to ensure that Iran was “not seeking an expansion of tensions” with Israel, indicated Thursday his ministry.
” Before it’s too late ”
The United States, Israel’s steadfast ally, has maintained that it would not participate in an Israeli response.
The White House, however, announced on Tuesday new sanctions “in the coming days” against Tehran, notably concerning “its drone and missile programs” and the Revolutionary Guards.
European Council President Charles Michel also announced on Wednesday that the EU had decided to impose new sanctions on Tehran to send a “clear message” after the attack on Israel.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz welcomed the measure. “Iran must be stopped now before it is too late,” he said on X.
As truce talks in the Gaza Strip stall, Qatar said on Wednesday it was “conducting a comprehensive reassessment” of its role as a leading mediator in the negotiations.
The UN, which fears widespread famine in the territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, launched an appeal on Wednesday for donations of 2.8 billion dollars to help the Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
Benjamin Netanyahu rejected “the allegations of international organizations about a famine in Gaza” and affirmed that Israel was doing “everything possible on the humanitarian issue”.
The Israeli army immediately announced the entry into Gaza of eight trucks carrying flour from the World Food Program via the Israeli port of Ashdod, a new route to increase aid to Gaza.
In this context, a vote by the UN Security Council at the initiative of Algeria, on the Palestinians’ request to become a full member state of the United Nations, should take place on Thursday or Friday, several indicated. diplomats.
The initiative, however, appears doomed to failure, due to opposition from the United States, which has a right of veto.
reference: www.lapresse.ca