While Benjamin Netanyahu had asked his army on Friday for an “evacuation” plan for civilians from Rafah, Israeli strikes began during the night from Friday to Saturday, on the southern tip of the Gaza Strip.
At the same time, the rating agency Moody's lowered Israel's debt rating by one notch.
Le Figaro
takes stock of the situation.
Israeli strikes on Rafah
The Israeli army bombs the Rafah sector, at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip, on Saturday.
On Friday, Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to prepare an
“evacuation plan”
for the hundreds of thousands of civilians there, before a possible ground offensive.
Early Saturday, witnesses reported strikes in the vicinity of this city now populated by around 1.3 million Palestinians, more than half the population of the Gaza Strip, the vast majority being people who were there. are refugees to escape the violence further north.
After Gaza City, then Khan Younes, Israel is now targeting a ground operation in this city adjoining Egypt, in the far south of the Gaza Strip, as part of its military offensive against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
In Rafah, during the day on Friday, several buildings were destroyed, according to AFP photographers.
In one neighborhood, people were seen carrying the bodies of three children killed in a bombing.
The Hamas health minister counted 110 dead in the evening and night, including 25 in strikes in Rafah.
Read alsoIn Israel, the government is torn apart over the continuation of operations in Gaza
Rating agency Moody's downgrades Israel's debt rating by one notch
On the markets, Israel saw the rating agency Moody's lower its debt rating by one notch, from A1 to A2, due to the repercussions
of "the ongoing conflict with Hamas"
which
"increase"
the political risk for the country and
“weaken”
its institutions as well as its
“fiscal solidity”
.
The former Israeli Minister of Finance, now an
opposition MP, Avigdor Lieberman, attributed this decision on the
social
network
.
According to the financial agency Bloomberg, this is the very first time that Israel has experienced a downgrade in its long-term rating.
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Israel launches strikes on Damascus (Syria) and southern Lebanon
On another military front, the Lebanese pro-Iranian movement Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, claimed to have launched dozens of rockets on Friday at an Israeli military position in the Syrian Golan occupied by Israel.
And the Israeli army reported airstrikes on Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon, bordering northern Israel.
During the night, Israel targeted the surroundings of the Syrian capital Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) and the official Syrian press agency, which reported “material
”
damage .