The Israeli army continues today Monday its operations in the Gaza Strip, assuring that the unprecedented Iranian attack on Saturday night into Sunday would not detract from the achievement of objectives who are assigned to the war against Hamas.

“Although we have been attacked by Iran, we have not lost sight, not for a moment, of our vital mission in Gaza, which is to rescue our hostages who are in the hands of Hamas, Iran’s proxy,” said last night Commander-in-Chief Daniel Hagari, spokesman for the Israeli armed forces.

He announced the deployment in the coming days of two additional reserve brigades to the besieged Palestinian enclave.

According to the Israeli military, there are hostages being held in Rafa, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is determined to launch a large-scale ground attack against this city, which it presents as the last stronghold of Hamas, a Palestinian Islamist movement in power since 2007 in the enclave. And this despite all the warnings from Washington and other capitals, who fear a bloodbath as Rafah is home to hundreds of thousands of Gazans who were displaced from other sectors.
According to UN estimates, around 1.5 million people have gathered in the city, most of them in makeshift camps.

Yesterday, unable to take it anymore, thousands took the coastal road north, after the — false — rumor spread that the Israeli army was now allowing displaced people to return home.

“On the edge of the abyss”

Addressing the Security Council, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the Middle East is on the brink of an abyss” as “the peoples of the region are facing with a real risk of total, catastrophic war” again condemning Iran’s attack on Israel, which he saw as a “severe escalation” and at the same time the aerial bombardment of the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1, recalling the “inviolability” of diplomatic facilities.

The April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in the Syrian capital resulted in the death of at least 16 people, among them seven members of the Revolutionary Guards. Iran has blamed Israel for the strike, which it has neither confirmed nor denied.

Israel has been a sworn enemy since the 1979 Islamic revolution of the Islamic Republic, which has made no secret of its desire to eliminate the Jewish state. Until now, however, Tehran had never attacked Israel directly and the two countries were fighting each other through third parties, intermediaries, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah. Analysts call Israel’s retaliation inevitable.

“The big question is not only whether Israel will act, but what it will choose to do,” a US official told AFP, assuring that the US would not participate in “any” such operation. Tel Aviv informs Fras it is certain that it will respond to Tehran’s attackat the moment he chooses the same.

Iran seems intent on avoiding further escalation, according to Nick Heras, an analyst at the US-based New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy. The attack was designed “for the whole world to see, but not to lead to the outbreak of war in the region,” he ruled.

“You Can’t Breathe”

“I can’t stay in the south any longer, it’s too crowded. You can’t breathe down there. It’s horrible,” explained Basma Salman, one of them.

The Israeli military was quick to deny the rumours. “The northern Gaza Strip is a war zone,” a spokesman said. Gaza residents told AFP they heard gunfire as they tried to move north.

Noor, about thirty years old, he preferred to turn back. “They shoot people, I changed. We don’t want to die.”

The war broke out on October 7, when Hamas’s military arm launched an unprecedented raid from the Gaza Strip into southern parts of the Israeli territory, killing 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to a French tally. Agency based on official Israeli data. Another 250-plus people were kidnapped, of whom 129 remain hostages in the Palestinian enclave — however at least 34 of them are believed to have been killed, according to Israeli sources.

In retaliation, Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which it labels a “terrorist” organization like the US and the EU, and its military operations have so far killed at least 33,729 people in the Gaza Strip, the majority of them women and children, according to the Palestinian Islamic Movement’s Ministry of Health.

Schools are opening again

Hamas and Israel accuse each other of sabotaging indirect negotiations to reach a ceasefire. However, “diplomacy is not dead”, assured yesterday John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council of the White House.

Israel’s military announced that schools across most of the country, which were closed for security reasons on Saturday due to a threatened attack by Iran, will resume normal operations from today.

The Islamic Republic indeed went on the night of Saturday into Sunday in an unprecedented attack, which it christened “Honorable Pledge”, launching more than 350 drones and missiles against Israel, in retaliation for the bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1. The Israeli army, however, assured that it “repelled” it with the help of the armed forces of allied states (USA, Britain, France, Jordan, etc.). According to him, 99% of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles headed for Israeli territory were destroyed, the majority before they even approached the border.

“Iran’s unprecedented attack has been countered with unprecedented defense”, Commander Hagari said with obvious satisfaction.

According to the spokesman, only a few ballistic missiles entered Israeli airspace and caused “slight” damage to a military base, which remains operational. He spoke of several minor injuries and a 7-year-old girl who is being treated in an intensive care unit.

Iran, on the other hand, assured that it “hit all its targets” causing “severe damage to the largest airbase in the Negev”, in southern Israel.

As “the Security Council neglected its duty to maintain international peace and security” when it did not condemn the April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus and “under these circumstances, the Islamic Republic of Iran she had no choice but to exercise her right in legitimate defense,” said the Islamic Republic’s ambassador to the UN, Amir Said Irawani, during an emergency meeting of the Security Council last night.

He assured that Tehran does not seek escalation at all, but will react strongly to “any threat or attack”. On the other hand, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, demanded that the UN proceed with the imposition of “all possible sanctions” against Iran “before it is too late.”