The spiral of violence between Israel and the Palestinian militias continues to claim victims a day after the surprise and unprecedented attack by Hamas. On the table there are already serious failures of the award-winning service of Israeli intelligence and one of the armies with the greatest investment and military technology.
But it has also shown a surprising capacity of the Palestinian militias to organize for a long time a large simultaneous operation, by land, sea and air, with which they managed to infiltrate armed groups into Israeli territory and attack up to eight Jewish towns in the south of the country. Is he Deadliest attack on Israel remembered since the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948. Many analysts compare the Hamas operation with the beginning of the Yom Kippur War, in 1973, when the armies of Syria and Egypt also attacked the Jewish State by surprise due to its uncontrolled expansion.
The toll of victims increases every so often and the dead now exceed a thousandwith more than 700 Israeli deaths and more than 400 Palestinians. The injured in Hebrew hospitals exceed 2,400, while in the Gaza Strip, subject to incessant bombardments by Israeli aircraft since Saturday, they exceed 2,200.
The decimated hospitals of the strip, with hardly any resources, cannot cope. The main hospital center of the Palestinian enclave “It’s like a slaughterhouse“summarized Dr. Mahmoud Shalabi, Gaza director of the charity Medical Aid for the Palestinians. “There were many bodies in the morgue and many medical staff could not cope with the enormous influx of victims they were receiving,” he added in statements. to the BBC.
The Israel Defense Forces have released images of precision bombings against Palestinian militants overnight, claiming they have attacked Hamas headquarters, key logistics points and weapons warehouses. But Israeli bombs have also fallen on residential buildings in Gaza that have been reduced to rubble. Even against one of the UN mission schools for Palestinian refugees, which was hit by a missile and suffered serious damage, although without causing any injuries. More than 220 people were taking refuge there.
“Right now ambulances cannot be used because they are being attacked,” Ayman Al-Djaroucha, deputy coordinator of Doctors Without Borders in Gaza, denounced this Sunday.
The UN demands the entry of aid into Gaza
The already deteriorating situation in Gaza, where more than two million people are crowded into 365 square kilometers, threatens to worsen. The Israeli blockade since 2007 on the entry of any supplies, including drinking water and electricity, has plunged the strip into a chronic humanitarian crisis in which 90% of the population depends on international aid to survive.
The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) has called this Sunday for “the humanitarian access in safe and unimpeded conditions to areas affected” by the war. It assures that it is prepared to “respond quickly with food reserves for displaced people or people housed in shelters, when the situation allows, and to resume its usual assistance in terms of food and cash transfers to vulnerable people”.
According to this organization, most businesses in the affected areas of Palestine “currently maintain food reserves for one month”, but they run the risk of running out and also spoiling due to the lack of electricity supply.
More than 100 Israelis captured in Gaza
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu already announced this Saturday that Israel was “at war.” This Sunday, after presiding over the Security Council, he officially approved the state of war in the country, which enables the Army to carry out “outstanding military activities” within the framework of the war with Hamas declared on Saturday, Israeli media report.
Israel evacuates civilians from areas near Gaza and sends armored vehicles to the border fence
The troops Israelis have not yet regained control total of the areas attacked by Hamas in the south. Military sources have assured that They have killed hundreds – 400 according to the latest balance sheet– of Islamist militants who were still in the Israeli area and who have captured dozens more, but the fighting still continues and they have not reported any casualties in their ranks.
Netanyahu is sending armored vehicles to the border with Gaza and The entry of troops into the Palestinian enclave is not ruled out. The evacuation of civilians from areas near Gaza has been ordered while tens of thousands of Israelis in the reserve are being mobilized and called up. Both Netanyahu and various spokespersons for the Executive and the Army point to a “long and difficult war” in which Israel has promised “revenge” and a forcefulness “like never before.”
This Sunday, for the first time since the Hamas attack, Israel has acknowledged that There are more than a hundred Israeli soldiers and civilians in the hands of the militias Palestinians in Gaza. “The numbers continue to rise and with them our sadness. Our prayers are with the families of those kidnapped, killed or injured by Hamas,” the Government Press Office wrote.
“They were not against military targets, but against civilians. They went after grandmothers, children, babies. The numbers are unprecedented,” said this Sunday the international spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, Richard Hecht, who describes the attack as ” our 9/11″, in reference to the 2001 Al Qaeda attacks in the United States.
On Sunday night, an Israeli Navy special forces unit captured the deputy commander of the southern division of Hamas’ naval force in Gaza, Muhammad Abu Ghali, Israel’s military spokesman said. The senior Hamas commander is detained and under interrogation by Israeli security forces, the spokesman said.
Almost at the same time, Hamas attacked Ben Gurion airport, Israel’s main airport, with rockets, in whose central area, where said facility is located, sirens have begun to sound warning of an air attack, Israeli media reported.
Possible entry of Hezbollah into the war
On the horizon is the possibility that the armed conflict will extend to other critical points on the Israeli borders. This Sunday they registered artillery fire exchanges between the Hebrew troops and the Lebanese Shiite militia party Hezbollah.
The Lebanese militia, financed and supported by Iran, is in control de facto in southern Lebanon. According to the Israeli Army, they responded to an attack against Jewish positions in the Shebaa Farms area, a small strip of 14 square kilometers on the border between Lebanon, Syria and Israel, which militarily occupied the enclave after its victory in the War. of the Six Days of 1967. At the moment the number of fatalities after the attack has not been revealed, but it is known that At least two minors have been injured.
Fear of a new open front with Hezbollah has been growing in Israel since the Hamas attack on Saturday and various Hebrew military spokesmen have warned the militia that any movement will be responded to harshly.
Uncertainty about the direction of the Israeli military operation still remains while Hamas has continued to launch rockets against its territory this Sunday. The possibility of a negotiated ceasefire is still far away despite mediation attempts by countries like Egypt. This Sunday the UN Security Council meeting on the new war in a conflict that has lasted seven decades is being held behind closed doors.
