Khan Younis remains today the scene of fierce fighting, which has forced tens of thousands of people to flee, as eyes turn to The Hague at the International Court of Justice, which may within the day order Israel to put the brakes on its attack on Gaza Strip, but without having any means of enforcing such a decision.

In recent hours, the international community has been expressing concern for the civilian population in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, above all in Khan Younis, where tanks fire against an installation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East ( UNRWA) killed 13 people and injured 56 others, 21 of whom are in critical condition.

After the US, France “condemned” the deadly strikes, while calling on Israel — which avoided explicitly blaming them — to “obey international law.” While Germany’s diplomacy said it was “extremely concerned” about the “desperate situation” civilians are facing in Khan Yunis.

“We tried to leave, but when I looked out, I saw tanks pouring. How could we leave?’ wondered on his bed, in the hospital Ahmad Katra, a Palestinian civilian who was injured in the incident. “They didn’t give us any chance to leave. They said it was a safe location, but in the end they bombed us inside a UN facility,” he added.

According to an AFP journalist, there was incessant shelling yesterday in Khan Younis, where according to the Israeli army, the leadership of Hamas is hiding in the enclave. The army also accused for the umpteenth time the military arm of the Palestinian Islamist movement of launching attacks from locations near hospitals.

“Human sea”

In recent days, thousands of people have made their way from Khan Younis to Rafah, a city neighboring Egypt, where most of the 1.7 million people displaced by the armed conflict have now gathered.

“A sea of ​​people has been forced to leave Khan Younis for the border with Egypt,” UNRWA’s commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini, summed up overnight, speaking of a “never-ending search for safety” by its population. Gaza Strip after the war broke out.

The Israeli army says it has “surrounded” Khan Younis, the birthplace of Yahya Shinwar, the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and believed to be the architect of the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement’s military arm on southern sectors of Israeli territory on October 7. .

The attack killed some 1,140 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official statements.

About 250 more people were abducted and taken to the Gaza Strip, of whom about a hundred were released in late November in a Palestinian prisoner swap during a week-long truce.

In retaliation for the Hamas attack, Israel’s civil-military leadership vowed to “wipe out” the Palestinian Islamist movement, and its military operations since then, the most extensive ever conducted in the Gaza Strip, have killed at least 25,900 people, the vast majority women and children, according to the latest report by the Hamas Health Ministry, which was made public yesterday.

Urgent measures without practical countermeasures?

As the death toll continues to mount and disasters are a daily occurrence, South Africa last month appealed to the UN International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in an urgent case, arguing that Israel is in violation of the UN Convention on the Prevention of and Suppression of the Crime of Genocide, signed in 1948, after the Shoah.

Without ruling on the merits, the UN’s top court is expected to announce its decision after noon on the emergency measures requested to protect Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. However, although its decisions are legally binding, the ICJ has no means at its disposal to enforce their implementation.

Hamas assured yesterday that it will observe a cease-fire if requested by the court in The Hague, but on the condition that Israel also complies with any such decision.

The Israeli government rejects and angrily criticizes the process, but is holding talks on a possible new truce with Hamas, which would allow the release of the remaining hostages in the enclave, in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

CIA, Mossad and Qatar

The head of the CIA will travel to Europe for talks with his counterparts in Israel and Egypt, as well as the prime minister of Qatar, in the hope of advancing negotiations for a new truce and the release of hostages remaining in the hands of Hamas. , the Washington Post and news website Axios reported yesterday.

William Burns will see Mossad chief David Barnea, Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdelrahman Al Thani in the coming days, according to the two media outlets, which did not say where.

Statements by Benjamin Netanyahu, for whom the emirate’s role as a mediator is “problematic” since it “finances” Hamas, may “undermine the mediation process”, Qatar’s diplomacy has warned.

Asked about this in Washington, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel did not comment on the Israeli prime minister’s statements, however he called Qatar an “irreplaceable” partner.