Theater of new Israeli airstrikes today, the Gaza Strip has turned into a ‘place of death and despair’, simply “unfit for human habitation”, warns the UNafter nearly three months of Israel-Hamas war, which threatens to set the entire Middle East on fire.

AFP journalists report that Israeli airstrikes took place early today in Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have fled in recent weeks to escape hostilities.

Shelling also continues in the northern Gaza Strip, where the Israeli army began ground operations in late October.

“The whole district is destroyed, I don’t know where people will turn. Where will we live?’ a resident of Jambaliya (north) said yesterday, after an Israeli raid.

“You see all this destruction, but we remain determined. We didn’t leave, to the south or anywhere else, we stay in Al Sika (district in Jabalia), here where our houses are”, he added.

The Gaza Strip has “simply become uninhabitable” and its residents are “faced with threats to their very existence on a daily basis as the world simply looks on”, summarized Martin Griffiths, the United Nations coordinator yesterday. for humanitarian affairs.

According to UNICEF, malnutrition and disease have now created a “cycle of death” that “threatens more than 1.1 million children” in the enclave, already impoverished before the war broke out, under a strict Israeli blockade for more than fifteen years.

Israel’s civil-military leadership has vowed to “eliminate” Hamas – which the EU and the US label a “terrorist” organization – after its unprecedented attack on southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7, in which some 1,140 people were killed, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official statements from the authorities. It was the deadliest attack by the Jewish state in 1948.

Fighters from Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups also took about 250 people hostage that day, more than 100 of whom were released in late November.

Since then, Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 22,600 people, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the latest tally by the Hamas Health Ministry, released yesterday Friday. In other words, about 1% of the population of the Palestinian enclave.

“We continue to call for an immediate end to the conflict, not only for the people of Gaza and its neighbors under threat, but also for future generations who will never forget the 90 days of hell and attacks on the most fundamental principles of humanity,” he said. Mr. Griffiths.

“Inescapable” retribution

But Israel declares that its military operations in the Gaza Strip will continue until the “return” of the hostages and the “elimination” of the military capabilities of Hamas, which remain “large”, as seen by its main ally, the government of USA.

“2024 will be a year of fighting”, warned the spokesman of the Israeli army, Daniel Hagari, according to which there is also a “high level of preparation” of the troops on the border with Lebanon, theater since October 8 of daily exchanges of fire between Hezbollah, Shiite Lebanese movement, an ally of Iran and Hamas, and Chahal.

The tension reached its peak after the death in an airstrike attributed to Israel of the deputy leader of Hamas, Saleh al-Aruri, in a southern suburb of Beirut, a stronghold of Hezbollah.

“Retribution is inevitable (…) We cannot remain silent after a breach of this magnitude, as this would mean that all of Lebanon will be exposed” in the future, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said yesterday. “Our fighters along the entire border (…) will retaliate for this dangerous violation,” he added.

In Syria and Iraq, attacks on US military bases have increased by leaps and bounds, while in Yemen the Houthi rebels, also allies of Iran, have increased drone and missile strikes against merchant ships in the Red Sea in a sign of “support” for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Against this backdrop, EU foreign policy chief Giuseppe Borrell is expected to hold talks at the weekend in Lebanon, while US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is in Turkey as part of a tour of the region that will also see Arab states and in the holy places, in the hope of preventing a conflagration in the Middle East.

The next day in the Gaza Strip

Another possible element of his agenda: the long-term future of Gaza.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallad presented yesterday Thursday the outline of his plan for the day after the war, which envisages creating a governance mechanism without Hamas and without Israeli political presence.

“The people of Gaza are Palestinians. Consequently, Palestinian entities will take over, provided there is no hostile action or threat against the state of Israel,” the Israeli defense minister said, without clarifying exactly who among the Palestinians he expects to take over. enclave of 2.4 million inhabitants.

His plan does not have the stamp of approval of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which is divided over the thorny issue, with its far-right members calling for Jewish settlers to return to the Gaza Strip after the war and for the Palestinian population to be “encouraged” to “immigrate”. .

For Ziad Abdo, 60, a Palestinian who sought refuge in Rafah, “the future is above all reconstruction. Tie up the destroyed hospitals, the schools turned into rubble. Nothing is left standing.”

But for two far-right Israeli ministers, Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, the future of Gaza must mean the departure of the Palestinians who live there and the return of Jewish settlers.

Moreover, in the occupied West Bank, the number of arbitrary settlements and new roads for settlers is experiencing an “unprecedented” increase, according to a report by the Israeli non-governmental organization Peace Now.

“The three months of war in Gaza were instrumentalized by settlers to create fait accompli on the ground and also to take control of Area C,” a sector of the West Bank under Israeli military and civilian control where settlements are concentrated, the NGO said, noting the favorable “political environment” for the settlers.