Israel has ordered further evacuations in Khan Yunis as efforts continue to secure a truce. Hamas reports 20,000 deaths in Gaza.
Israel has ordered new evacuations in the largest city in southern Gaza, while efforts continue on Thursday to obtain a truce in the territory where the death toll has now reached 20,000 according to Hamas.
The Israeli army on Wednesday ordered on social networks the “immediate evacuation” of an area “covering approximately 20%” of the city of Khan Younes, according to a report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs ( Ocha).
“The extent of the displacements resulting from the evacuation order is not clear,” notes the Ocha.
The Gaza Strip is deprived of electricity due to the total blockade exercised by Israel and many residents only have the radio and word of mouth to obtain information.
According to Ocha, the area to be evacuated housed more than 111,000 inhabitants before the start of the Israeli offensive two months ago, and now has some 141,000 Palestinians taking refuge in 32 camps fleeing the fighting.
On Monday, the Israeli army indicated that it was intensifying its operations in Khan Younes.
Israel has promised to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the unprecedented attack carried out on October 7 by the Islamist movement on its soil, which left around 1,140 dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on the latest official Israeli figures.
Around 250 people were also taken hostage, of whom 129 are still detained in Gaza, according to Israel.
The Hamas government announced Wednesday that Israeli military operations had left 20,000 dead in Gaza since the start of the war, including at least 8,000 children and 6,200 women.
Diplomatic efforts
Diplomatic efforts are currently taking place on several fronts to try to achieve a new truce and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.
An initial one-week break between November 24 and December 1 allowed the release of 105 hostages and 240 Palestinians detained by Israel.
On the one hand, Hamas is talking with Egypt: the leader of the Palestinian movement, Ismaïl Haniyeh, went to Cairo on Wednesday to discuss a new “temporary one-week truce in exchange for the release by Hamas of 40 Israeli prisoners, women, children and men,” a source close to Hamas told AFP.
But these negotiations have so far produced no results, sources close to the matter told the BBC and the Wall Street Journal.
According to a source from Islamic Jihad, another Islamist movement that fights alongside Hamas and holds hostages, its leader Ziad al-Nakhala will also go to Cairo early next week.
On the other hand, Israel is maintaining a dialogue with Qatar and the United States to try to reach a truce allowing the release of hostages.
The positions of the two camps, however, still remain very far apart.
Hamas demands a complete cessation of fighting as a prerequisite for any negotiations on the fate of the hostages. Israel is open to the idea of a truce but rules out any ceasefire before the “elimination” of Hamas, in power since 2007 in Gaza and classified as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel .
The war “will continue until the elimination of Hamas, until victory. Those who think that we are going to stop are out of touch with reality,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated on Wednesday.
US President Joe Biden, whose country is Israel’s main ally, acknowledged that there was still a long way to go before reaching a possible truce.
“We are not expecting an agreement at this stage, but we are keeping up the pressure,” he said on Wednesday.
“Where are we safe?”
Tough negotiations must also continue on Thursday at the UN Security Council, which has postponed since the beginning of the week a vote on a resolution intended to accelerate the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, but likely to be a new American veto if it uses too strong terms.
This veto power was denounced by Hamas on Thursday. “The Biden administration is killing our people twice, once with its bombs, once by depriving them of food and medicine,” the movement said in a statement.
United Nations services continue to warn of the deep humanitarian crisis shaking Gaza. Half of the population there suffers from extreme or severe hunger, and 90% are regularly deprived of food for an entire day, according to Ocha.
The World Health Organization is organizing a press briefing on Thursday in Geneva, devoted to health conditions in Gaza.
The war has caused immense destruction in this territory, most hospitals are out of service and 1.9 million people, or 85% of the population, according to the UN, have fled their homes.
“The assault by the Israeli occupying forces against the health system in Gaza is taking the most sadistic forms,” said Francesca Albanese, the United Nations rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories, on X busy.
“Hospitals and medical staff are sacred,” she added, denouncing a “senseless war against the population of Gaza.”
On site, Israeli strikes continue, to the great despair of the residents.
“Where are we safe? Where should we go?” a Palestinian who fled northern Gaza for Rafah asked AFP on Wednesday after a strike near the school where he was taking refuge. in this southern city.
“They said it was a safe area. (…) There is no other place to go, we are trapped in a square of only 5 km on a side,” he said. complained this man, who refused to give his name.
Tensions on the Lebanese border
The Israeli army announced Thursday that it had lost three more soldiers, bringing to 137 the number of soldiers killed since the start of the ground offensive on October 27.
She claimed Wednesday to have discovered a network of tunnels used by “senior leaders” of Hamas in Gaza City (north) and located “in direct proximity to shops, government buildings, residences and a school”.
According to the Palestinian Wafa agency, the army also carried out operations in the West Bank on Wednesday evening, which led to the arrest of several people.
Beyond the war in Gaza, the conflict continues to fuel tensions in the Middle East.
On Thursday Hezbollah, Hamas’ Islamist ally in Lebanon, announced that it had fired rockets into northern Israel.
Earlier, the Israeli army explained that it had struck a Hezbollah “operational command center” and fired on fighters heading towards the border near Metula.
Hezbollah confirmed the death of a fighter, killed while “on his way to Jerusalem”.