As the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel escalates, and the latter focuses on the goal of “returning the residents of the north” to their homes in the border areas with Lebanon, some Gazans have begun to fear that these developments may overwhelm what they are suffering at a time when winter is approaching amid a severe humanitarian crisis in the Strip.
For about a year, the war in the Gaza Strip has been ongoing, between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement (classified as a terrorist organization in the United States and other countries), but attention is now more focused on the dramatically escalating tensions on the Lebanese front, where Israel has escalated its attacks against Hezbollah.
Communication devices widely used by members of the Iranian-backed Lebanese movement were bombed on Tuesday and Wednesday, killing and wounding thousands.
The Lebanese authorities and Hezbollah accused Israel of being behind the attacks, but the latter did not comment on the matter.
On Friday, the Israeli army launched airstrikes on areas in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which it said targeted prominent Hezbollah leaders. Beirut announced that 31 people were killed in the raids, including children.
Hezbollah announced the killing of its leaders in that raid, most notably Ibrahim Aqil and Ahmed Wahbi.
Deaths in a raid on a school in Gaza.. and the Israeli army comments
The Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip announced on Saturday that 40 people were killed in an airstrike on a school housing displaced people in the Strip, while the Israeli army said it targeted members of the Hamas movement.
Back in Gaza, Mohammed Al-Masry, 31, who was forced to flee several times due to the ongoing bombardment, told the newspaper: New York Times“It is unfortunate to see attention being directed towards the West Bank or Lebanon.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen here. It’s not just depression or misery, it’s a terrifying catastrophe. The situation is getting worse and worse,” he continued.
The man showed a short video clip of himself and his family trying to escape in a truck, his face covered in sweat. “Displacement is the worst thing a human being can experience,” he said as the camera panned over a road crowded with people fleeing on vehicles or donkey carts.
The Palestinian Civil Defense announced on Saturday that 19 people were killed in an Israeli raid on a school housing displaced people in Gaza City, while the Israeli army said it “targeted Hamas members who were hiding there.”
Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal said that among the dead were “13 children and 6 women,” one of whom was pregnant, according to Agence France-Presse.
He confirmed that “more than 30 people were wounded, most of them children and women… in an Israeli missile attack on Al-Zeitoun C School,” explaining that the school “harbors thousands of displaced people” from the Al-Zeitoun neighborhood, southeast of Gaza City.
Newspaper: US officials rule out Gaza ceasefire agreement in Biden’s term
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that US officials currently believe that a ceasefire agreement in Gaza between Israel and Hamas is unlikely to be reached before President Joe Biden leaves office in January.
For its part, the Israeli army said in a statement that it “carried out a raid targeting terrorists who were operating inside a Hamas command and control center in Gaza City,” adding that the target was “inside” the Al-Falah School, adjacent to the Al-Zeitoun School buildings.
The army added that it “took measures to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of precision weapons.”
Several schools in Gaza have been hit by Israeli air strikes in recent months, which accuse Hamas of hiding its fighters in school buildings where thousands of Gazans have fled, a charge the Palestinian movement denies.
The vast majority of the population of 2.4 million people have been displaced within the Palestinian Strip since the beginning of the war, according to UN statistics.
A report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, published Thursday, confirms that by early 2024, “between 80 and 96 percent of agricultural goods in Gaza, including irrigation networks, livestock farms, orchards, machinery and storage facilities, had been destroyed, exacerbating “already high levels of food insecurity.”
The report added that “the destruction also hit the private sector hard, as 82 percent of companies, which are the main engine of Gaza’s economy, were damaged or destroyed.”
In August, only 69 trucks of humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip daily on average, far below the pre-war average of 500, according to the United Nations.
The Egyptian continued, saying: “With the onset of winter, any gust of wind will cause the tents to fly away, because they are blankets (cloth covers). If our bodies as humans have collapsed, become tired and disintegrated, how can a tent hold together for a whole year?”
Ahmed Saleh, 44, who was an employee in Gaza, said, “It doesn’t matter if the international community turns its attention elsewhere, because for almost a year the world has done nothing for Gaza.”
The mediators (the United States, Egypt and Qatar) are pushing for months of negotiations between Hamas and Israel to reach a truce agreement between the two sides, leading to a cessation of fighting and the release of hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinian prisoners.
But the negotiations continue to falter, amid accusations between Israel and Hamas of intransigence and adherence to demands that the other side does not accept.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed that Israel will not end the war before it “achieves its goals,” most notably “eliminating Hamas and returning the residents of the north to their homes” on the border with Lebanon.