“We are preparing the ground for an operation that is as effective as possible,” said this Sunday, the head of the Israeli air force, General Tomer Bar. “We will do what is necessary, aggressively, so that if it is decided to maneuver, Let us allow the best land entry that gives the troops freedom of operational movement,” he added.
The Gaza Ministry of Health has updated the death toll to 2,670 dead and Israel has once again asked the entire population of the north (more than a million people) to evacuate to the south through what it called “ evacuation corridor.
Juliette Touma, director of communications for UNRWA (the UN agency for Palestinian refugees), noted this Saturday that one million people have been displaced in Gaza in a week of fighting. “We need humanitarian access in Gaza. “No humanitarian agency, including UNRWA, has been allowed to introduce assistance.”
Israel finalizes a ground offensive in Gaza, but has not announced the timing. In a visit to the troops deployed on the border, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his soldiers this Saturday: “Are you prepared for what is coming? More is coming.” “We are deploying to the Gaza Strip with our ground forces and preparing for the next phase of operations,” military spokesman Jonathan Conricus said this Sunday.
“Hamas thought it was going to break us, but we will break Hamas,” Netanyahu said in the first cabinet of national unity to confront the war. “Our unity sends a clear message to the people, the enemy and the world.”
The Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, stated at a press conference that this “will be a fierce, deadly, precise war that will change the situation permanently.” “This is a war of the children of light against the children of darkness,” added the minister, who has promised to “eliminate Hamas” because they do not accept the existence of Israel, “they are savage humans, beasts that have killed soldiers.” children and citizens.” “As long as we have not eliminated them, we will not have finished the mission,” he concluded.
An analysis of aerial images and social media posts by London-based investigative agency Forensic Architecture proves that a convoy of vehicles carrying fleeing civilians in Gaza, which was hit by a deadly airstrike, He was traveling on one of the two roads designated by Israel as “safe routes” towards the southern half of the strip, according to The Guardian. Videos and photographs from the moment after the attack show 12 bodies, most of them women and children, the youngest about two years old, and several damaged vehicles.
Israel alleges that Hamas is blocking people trying to flee to the south and says that information about dead civilians evacuating the north is manipulation by Hamas and denies that this happened. “We did not attack on purpose, it may have been some type of accident, which I doubt,” said the military spokesman about an explosion on the corridor used by civilians.
LIVE UPDATE with @jconricus: Hamas is blocking the evacuation of civilians. https://t.co/N7Y08WP8gM
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 15, 2023
The Israeli Army has also confirmed that among the 1,300 killed in the Hamas attack, at least 289 are soldiers. They have also reported that the confirmed number of Israeli hostages in Gaza is 126.
“We must not lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of Palestinians have nothing to do with the terrible attacks by Hamas and are suffering as a result,” said US President Joe Biden this Sunday, who has shown a firm support for “Israel’s right to defend itself.” The US has even avoided the words “de-escalation”, “end of violence” or “return to calm”, according to an email from the State Department to the different spokespersons reported by the NBC network.
The European Council, which meets on Tuesday, issued a statement this Sunday emphasizing “Israel’s right to defend itself within the framework of international humanitarian law.” The 27 call for the release of all Hamas hostages and reiterate “the importance of providing urgent humanitarian assistance” in Gaza.
Hamas has continued to launch rockets from Gaza and one of them has caused a fire in Sderot, one of the Israeli towns attacked by the group last Saturday. Several residents of the town of more than 30,000 people, located about a kilometer from the border with Gaza, evacuated the city on buses this Sunday.
Rocket landed in Sderot, causing a fire, according to the municipality. pic.twitter.com/gSU2Sty3kt
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) October 15, 2023
Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz has noted that Israel has restored water service in some areas of the southern Gaza Strip. “The decision to open the waters in the south, agreed between Netanyahu and President Biden, will cause a displacement of the civilian population towards the south of the Gaza Strip and will allow the strengthening of the general siege in Gaza in the areas of electricity, water and fuel and will make it easier for the Army to operate and destroy the Nazi infrastructure of Hamas,” the minister said.
Clashes in the north
Israel has declared a four-kilometre-wide strip along the Lebanese border a closed zone, after a week of exchanges of gunfire and artillery with the Shiite militia Hezbollah and Palestinian groups based in Lebanon. The clashes have intensified this Sunday.
“Assessing the situation and the recent shooting incident in northern Israel, an area of up to 4 kilometers from the border with Lebanon has been closed. The Armed Forces emphasize that it is prohibited to enter this area and ask the public to take this into account and not enter,” says a statement released by the Israeli Army. Civilians living two kilometers from the border have been ordered to stay near shelter.
Anti-tank fire fired by Hezbollah killed one person in northern Israel this Sunday, to which Tel Aviv responded with aerial bombardments on Lebanese territory. The Lebanese armed group, considered a terrorist organization by Europe and the US (like Hamas), has claimed responsibility for four other attacks throughout the morning, at least one of them directed against an Israeli tank. The Israeli Army confirms that it has been attacked. Several rockets have also been launched from Lebanon, leaving several people injured in Israel.
The UN mission in Lebanon has reported the impact of a rocket on one of its barracks on the Lebanese side. “We are working to verify where [venía el cohete]. Members of the peacekeeping mission were not in the shelters at the time. Fortunately, no one has been injured,” the mission noted.
Ignacio Álvarez-Ossorio, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Complutense University, assures that he would not be surprised if Hezbollah joined the current war in some way. “That is Israel’s main fear, because they know that Hezbollah has rearmed and has technology that it did not have in the 2008 war. That is why they are sending a good part of their forces to the north of Israel, to try to dissuade them. to open another front. But if things get ugly, which they are going to get, they will not hesitate to get involved.”
The United States is sending a second aircraft carrier to the area “to deter hostile actions against Israel or any efforts to expand this war following the Hamas attack,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Saturday. “It shows our determination to deter any state or non-state actor from escalating this war.” Israel has also sent ammunition to Israel.
On Saturday night, Israel carried out a bombing of the Aleppo airport that left it out of operation, according to the Syrian Ministry of Defense. The Iranian Foreign Minister indicated this Sunday that if the “aggression against Gaza” does not stop, there is a growing possibility of the war expanding to other fronts. Jake Sullivan, White House national security advisor, has also warned of the possibility of an expansion of the conflict. “We have to prepare for any possible contingency.”
Source: www.eldiario.es
