A new wave of Israeli shelling on the Gaza Strip killed 21 people on Saturday and injured 83, according to the latest data released this Sunday by the Gaza Ministry of Health. It is one of the bloodiest days in the enclave since the beginning of the truce, but episodes of violence are increasingly frequent in the Strip and risk becoming the new reality of the territory despite the existence of the ceasefire. According to Palestinian authorities, since the ceasefire began six weeks ago, Israel has killed 339 people in Gaza – most of them women, children and elderly people.
Israel justified the latest attacks as a response to the infiltration of armed men into Israeli troop-controlled Gaza territory, an action it described as a “flagrant” ceasefire violation by Hamas. The militia accuses the Israeli authorities of “manufacturing pretexts” to resume the offensive in the enclave and asks the United States, the main promoters of the agreement, “to contain Israeli attempts to undermine it”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ratified this Sunday the military action of the day before. In statements made during a cabinet meeting and released in a statement, the president anticipated that Israel will continue to place a “very high” price on the “numerous” violations of the agreement that he believes Hamas is committing in Gaza, and said that Israeli authorities do not need anyone’s permission to act militarily in the Strip or in Lebanon, where the Israeli army claims to have eliminated two Hezbollah fighters on Saturday. “We operate independently of everyone,” Netanyahu’s statement concludes. “These answers pass through the Ministry of Defense and ultimately reach me. Israel is responsible for its own security.”
On Saturday, Israeli troops began a series of attacks by shelling a vehicle in Rimal, a neighborhood crowded with displaced people in Gaza City. The missile and subsequent fire left at least five dead and more than 20 injured, most of them children, according to Al Shifa Hospital director Rami Mhanna. Another attack in the Al Naser neighborhood, west of Gaza City, killed four people.
Israeli hostilities were also deployed in the center of the enclave. Troops fired bullets at two houses in the towns of Deir el Balah and the Nuseirat refugee camp. Al Awda Hospital, located in the area, received five bodies, including those of two children and a woman. There are also 38 injured, including 14 minors, as Mohamed Salha, head of the medical center, confirmed to this newspaper.
Minutes after the attack, a statement from Netanyahu released Saturday afternoon accused Hamas of “sending a terrorist” to attack Israeli soldiers. “In response, we eliminated five Hamas terrorists,” he said, apparently alluding to the attacks Israel had launched in Gaza shortly before.
In parallel, Israeli troops reported several incidents related to the infiltration of terrorists into Israeli-controlled areas and reported Israeli fire actions of varying magnitude. In some cases, such hostilities were limited to “eliminating the threat.” In others, troops reacted with “precise bombings” against Hamas agents and military assets across the Strip, a military statement said this Sunday.
The subsequent flash offensives perpetrated in Gaza by Israel – which continues to fail in its humanitarian obligations, denying two million Palestinians food and shelter in the quantities required by the truce agreement – nullify the concept of peace promoted by US President Donald Trump among the inhabitants of Gaza. Last Wednesday, the Israeli army killed 30 people in 24 hours. On October 29, the bloodiest day since the White House proclaimed the end of the war, an Israeli offensive killed 104 people in a single day.
