Correspondent in Jerusalem
The Israeli army continues its systematic conquest of the northern Gaza Strip. Fighting is still intense in western Gaza City, where the army announced on Thursday that it had captured the fishing port. Located a few hundred meters from the famous al-Shifa hospital, it housed the boats of Gazan sailors. But Israel accuses Hamas of using the infrastructure "as a training center for its naval commando forces to plan and execute naval terror attacks." On October 7, the day of the terror attack in which 1300,240 Israelis died and <> were taken hostage, Hamas assailants entered Israel by sea.
The "targeted" operation that began on Wednesday at the al-Shifa hospital complex continued on Thursday. The Israeli military released video footage showing military equipment - assault rifles, magazines, grenades - believed to have been abandoned by Hamas fighters in the hospital buildings. Hamas' health ministry says the army damaged several medical facilities. Dr. Mohammed Zaqout, director general of Gaza's hospitals, who has taken refuge in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, said he had lost contact with medical teams inside the hospital. "The Red Cross, WHO and UNRWA have asked us to get the wounded, the sick and premature babies out. We are trying to transfer them according to the capacities of the hospitals operating in the southern Gaza Strip," the doctor explained, requesting that these patients be treated in Egyptian hospitals.
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In Khan Younes, the Israeli army dropped leaflets asking people in the eastern parts of the city to evacuate to "shelters", suggesting that military operations could be carried out in the area in the near future. "For your safety, you should immediately evacuate your places of residence and move to known shelters," the leaflet said, citing the neighborhoods of Khuzaa, Abassan, Bani Suheila and al-Qarara. Tens of thousands of people have fled to Khan Younes since the beginning of the war and the "known shelters", hospitals or UNRWA centres, are overflowing.
'Urgent and prolonged humanitarian pauses'
Although the war is not over, Israel is already trying to shape the future of the Gaza Strip. In an interview with the Financial Times, Israeli President Isaac Herzog questioned this week. "If we step down, who will replace us? We cannot leave a void behind. (...) No one will accept that Gaza is once again a rear base for terrorism," he said. More concretely, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the American network ABC that his country would assume responsibility for the security of the Gaza Strip "for an indefinite period." But Israel will have to go easy on the international community. Despite his unwavering support, US President Joe Biden reiterated on Wednesday that a two-state solution, Palestinian and Israeli, was the only one likely to resolve the conflict and that a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip would be "a big mistake".
On Thursday, the spokeswoman for the Quai d'Orsay recalled the official position of France, according to which it is not up to Israel to decide the political future of the Gaza Strip, which will have to be part of a future Palestinian state. Breaking its silence for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the UN Security Council is calling for "urgent and prolonged humanitarian pauses" in the Gaza Strip. After 11 days of a war that has killed at least 000,<> people in the Gaza Strip, Israel appears increasingly threatened with diplomatic isolation.