Israel today continues focused operations in the southern sector of the Gaza Stripa region where the humanitarian crisis is intensifying, against the background of the disagreement between the Israeli government and its main ally at the international level, the USA, regarding the future establishment of a Palestinian state.

On the night of Friday to Saturday, Israeli forces bombed again, according to eyewitnesses, the area of Khan Younis, of the largest city in the southern Gaza Strip, where, according to the Israeli military, leaders of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas are hiding.

Yesterday Friday, the Health Ministry of Hamas spoke aboutdozens of dead —about 80—in Israeli shelling of the enclave, including Khan Younis, which has become the focus of hostilities in recent weeks.

“Today in Gaza almost everything is destroyed, everything that is not destroyed is overpopulated (…) We use the minimum possible amount of medicine so that we don’t run out,” testified Enrico Valaperta, an Italian specialist in combat medicine, who returned from week-long mission to the Gaza Strip of Doctors Without Borders (Médecins sans frontières, MSF).

“Inhumane living conditions”

The World Health Organization (WHO) denounces the “inhumane living conditions” in the small coastal enclave, where the 2.4 million inhabitants lack everything, including telecommunications.

Last night, however, the Palestinian provider PalTel announced the “progressive restoration” of telephone services and internet access, after a week of almost complete interruption, the longest since the outbreak of this war.

The conflict was sparked by an unprecedented attack by Hamas’ military wing on southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7, which killed some 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official statements by the authorities. .

About 250 other people were abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip when the attack took place. About a hundred were released when a week-long truce was declared at the end of November. According to Israeli authorities, 132 still remain in the Palestinian enclave, but 28 are believed to be dead. Yesterday the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a movement fighting alongside Hamas, released a video showing a wounded Israeli hostage, stressing that he was killed in an Israeli bombardment.

In retaliation for the October 7 attack, Israel vowed to “wipe out” the Palestinian Islamist movement in power in the Gaza Strip since 2007 and its military operations since then, which have continued despite calls from the UN and much of the international community to the guns fell silent, at least 24,762 people have been killed, the vast majority of them women and children, according to the Hamas Health Ministry, which also reports 62,108 wounded.

Biden vs. Netanyahu

The US government, a key ally of Israel and a key supporter of its military operations against Hamas, has recently repeatedly called on the Israeli military to take steps to reduce civilian casualties and reiterated its support for the establishment of a Palestinian state. an issue on which he deeply disagrees with Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

“Israel must maintain security control over the entire area west of the Jordan” river, this is a “necessary condition” for any “solution”, even though it “totally contradicts the idea of ​​(Palestinian) national sovereignty” , Mr. Netanyahu said yesterday Thursday.

The position sparked an outcry from the Palestinians and also highlighted the disagreement with Washington on this issue, which is at the heart of the war and post-war scenarios for the Gaza Strip.

Yesterday, a day after his controversial statements, Mr. Netanyahu had a telephone conversation with US President Joe Biden, among other things, about the future, about the “two state” solution, Israeli and Palestinian.

The US president “still always believes in the prospect and the possibility” of a two-state solution, although he “recognizes that it will take a lot of work to get there,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said afterward. from yesterday’s conference. The previous conversation of Mr. Biden/Netanyahu was on December 23rd.

“Real Slap”

Despite the lack of agreement with Washington on this issue, Israel has given the green light for deliveries of flour cargoes to the Gaza Strip through the Israeli port of Ashdod, according to the White House.

The head of European diplomacy, Giuseppe Borrell, argued yesterday that the two-state solution may have to be “imposed from abroad”, by the international community, while he also said that Israel “created” Hamas to “obstruct” the establishment of a state. of Palestine and “funded” the Palestinian militant Islamist movement to “weaken” the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas.

At the same time, the ongoing armed conflict in the Gaza Strip has escalated tensions between Israel and the neighboring Iran “axis of resistance”, which includes organizations such as Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis.

The latter claimed responsibility for the attack on a US tanker operated by a Greek shipping company in the Gulf of Aden, an action that triggered new US aerial bombardments, again targeting surface-to-surface missiles of the rebel movement.

The Israeli army announced that it bombed Hezbollah installations in southern Lebanon on Friday, which for its part claimed responsibility for three attacks on Israeli soil and said that Israel would suffer a “real slap in the face” if it decided to “expand its attack”. .