The Dixmude
helicopter carrier
, mobilized to treat injured Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip,
“has completed its mission”
, some 120 seriously injured having been treated on board in two months, the army general staff announced on Thursday French.
The ship should leave the Egyptian port of Al-Arich where it was moored about fifty kilometers from Palestinian territory,
"by the end of the week"
, either Friday, Saturday or Sunday, the state said. major during a press briefing.
Around 120 seriously injured people were ultimately treated on this ship which docked on November 27.
A figure much lower than that put forward by President Emmanuel Macron in mid-January: Dixmude
“
has already made it possible to treat more than 1,000 patients, children and adults”
, he welcomed during a televised press conference.
An Italian boat remains on site
Present on the boat on December 31, the Minister of the Armed Forces Sébastien Lecornu appeared to deplore too restricted access to the boat left by the Israeli authorities.
With a flow of patients between
“zero”
and around twenty per day,
“we must treat more civilian wounded
,” he insisted at the time.
The minister had also announced
“discussions with a certain number of countries in Europe, in particular the British, German partners or other countries”
to take over from
Dixmude
, visibly unsuccessful.
An Italian boat also treating the injured, however, remains on site.
The October 7 attack perpetrated on Israeli soil by Hamas resulted in the deaths of more than 1,140 people in Israel, mainly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Some 250 people were kidnapped in the attack and taken to Gaza, around 100 of whom were released in late November during a truce in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
In response, Israel vowed
to “annihilate”
Hamas, in power in Gaza since 2007, and launched a vast military operation which left 25,900 people dead, the vast majority of them women, children and adolescents, according to a latest report. published Thursday by the Islamist movement's Ministry of Health.
Health conditions are described as
“catastrophic”
by the UN and NGOs in the small landlocked territory, where dozens of health infrastructures have been destroyed or damaged and medicines are lacking.