Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credit: MURTADHA AL-SUDANI / ANADOLU AGENCY / ANADOLU AGENCY VIA AFP 12:01 p.m., March 23, 2024

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is expected in Egypt on the border with the Gaza Strip on Saturday. On the Palestinian territory, concern is growing about the humanitarian situation. Fear of an upcoming Israeli ground offensive in the overcrowded town of Rafah.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is expected in Egypt on Saturday on the border with the Gaza Strip, amid growing concerns about the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory and an upcoming Israeli ground offensive in the overpopulated town of Rafah. After five and a half months of war between Israel and the Islamist movement Hamas in the Gaza Strip, on the verge of famine, Antonio Guterres "should repeat his calls for a humanitarian ceasefire" in Gaza, according to his spokesperson Deputy Farhan Haq.

Clashes show no respite in this besieged territory, particularly in and around the al-Chifa hospital in the northern city of Gaza, where the Israeli army claimed on Saturday to have killed more than 170 Palestinian fighters and arrested hundreds of suspects since the start of the week. Combat planes also struck around thirty “terrorist targets” across the Gaza Strip on Friday.

In Rafah, in the south, a nighttime bombing of a house killed a grandmother, Nadia Kawareh, 65, and four of her grandchildren aged between 3 and 12, according to relatives and the health ministry. Hamas which also reported 14 injured. "The whole house was destroyed," said family member Fawzy Kawareh, who said other people were still trapped under the rubble.

Information to remember:

  • UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres expected in Egypt on the border with the Gaza Strip

  • Antonio Guterres 'should repeat his calls for a humanitarian ceasefire' in Gaza

  • The Israeli army said on Saturday it had killed more than 170 Palestinian fighters

"Enough"

Early Saturday, the Hamas health ministry reported 67 deaths overnight and evening across the territory. “We have had enough, I assure you. Drop a bomb on us and free us from this life (...) No human being could bear what is happening to us,” said Turkiya Barbakh, close to victims of strikes, crying. in southern Gaza. The UN boss is due to meet humanitarian workers on Saturday on the "Egyptian side" of Rafah, a Gaza town backed by the border where 1.5 million Palestinians are crowded, hence the fears for the population in the event of a disaster. land operation on site.

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The question was at the heart of exchanges on Friday in Tel Aviv between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the head of American diplomacy Antony Blinken, who disagree on how to weaken Hamas militarily. "I said that we did not have the possibility of defeating Hamas without entering Rafah and without eliminating the battalions that remained there. I told him that I hoped to do it with the support of the United States, but s "We have to, we will do it alone," Benjamin Netanyahu said after the meeting with the American Secretary of State.

The latter affirmed that such an operation "risks killing more civilians (...), further isolating Israel globally and endangering its long-term security." “We have the same objectives as Israel: the defeat of Hamas. But a major ground operation in Rafah is not the way to achieve this,” he added on X, specifying that he would meet the week next Israeli officials in Washington to discuss it.

"Hypocritical"

Antony Blinken completed a new tour of the region on Friday, which took him to Egypt and Saudi Arabia, to also try to increase humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip and support talks in Qatar with a view to a truce. Meanwhile at the UN, a draft Security Council resolution, presented by the United States, on an "immediate ceasefire", was not adopted on Friday due to Russian and Chinese vetoes.

Since the start of the war, the United States had opposed the use of the term "ceasefire" in UN resolutions, blocking three texts to this effect. They finally decided to put to the vote this new text which mentioned "the need for an immediate and lasting ceasefire".

But Russia and China criticized ambiguous wording that did not directly call for silencing the guns. Russian Ambassador Vassili Nebenzia notably denounced the “hypocritical spectacle” of the United States while “Gaza has almost been erased from the map”. A new vote on a new draft resolution demanding an "immediate" ceasefire, prepared by eight of the ten non-permanent members of the Council, is scheduled for Monday.

The war broke out on October 7 when Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza carried out an unprecedented attack in southern Israel, which resulted in the deaths of at least 1,160 people, mainly civilians, according to a count by the AFP established from official Israeli data.

Insufficient help

According to Israel, around 250 people have been kidnapped and 130 of them are still hostages in Gaza, of whom 33 are believed to have died. In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union. His army launched an offensive which left 32,070 dead in Gaza, according to the latest report from the Islamist movement's Ministry of Health.

Israel has imposed a complete siege on Palestinian territory since the start of the war and strictly controls aid that arrives mainly from Egypt via Rafah. However, these controls have the effect, according to the UN, of reducing the number of trucks entering the territory.

“Before October 7, an average of 500 to 700 trucks entered Gaza every day. Today, the average is barely 150,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency, told X for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). “The siege, hunger and disease will soon become the main causes of death in Gaza,” he recently warned. To relieve the population, several countries are organizing food airdrops and have opened a maritime corridor from Cyprus to Gaza. But aid remains insufficient to meet the needs of Gaza's 2.4 million inhabitants.

the Israeli army claimed on Saturday to have killed more than 170 Palestinian fighters