Heavy fighting reported in northern Gaza – DW – 05/12/2024

The Israeli military said it had opened a new passage for humanitarian aid entering the Gaza Strip, in coordination with the United States.

The crossing, called Western Erez, was opened to the north of the Palestinian territory.

This comes as the main entry point for aid remains closed.

Earlier this week, Israeli troops took control of the Rafah crossing in southern Gaza, forcing it to close.

The Israeli military said it was fighting Hamas militants in eastern Rafah, near the crossing.

Egypt has said it will join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said the move comes due to “the worsening severity and scale of Israeli attacks against Palestinian civilians.”

In December, South Africa filed a complaint with the ICJ, claiming that Israel had committed the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip, an accusation that Israel rejected as “baseless.”

The ICJ ordered Israel in January to take all measures in its power to prevent forces from committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. It also called on Israel to take steps to protect Palestinian civilians from further harm and allow humanitarian aid to enter the territory while it examines the overall case.

Egypt, alongside the United States and Qatar, served as a mediator between Israel and Hamas.

However, talks for a truce and hostage exchange deal halted earlier this week due to Israeli military action in the southern Gaza town of Rafah.

Israel took control of the Gaza side of the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, an operation that disrupted humanitarian aid deliveries through the facility to Gaza.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned of Israel’s growing offensive in Rafah.

He told US channel ABC News on Sunday that Israel did not have a “credible plan” to protect more than a million civilians who have taken refuge there.

Blinken said U.S. President Joe Biden has made it clear to Israel that if it “launches this major military operation in Rafah, then there are going to be certain systems that we are not going to support and provide for that operation.”

The president has repeatedly warned against the operation and said the United States would suspend deliveries of artillery shells and other weapons if it continued.

“We have real concerns about how they are being used,” Blinken continued. Israel must “have a clear and credible plan to protect civilians, which we have not yet seen,” Blinken noted.

In another interview with US broadcaster CBS News, he said Israel could “enjoy some initial success, but potentially at an incredibly high cost to civilians.”

Israel “would be left with a lasting insurgency” without an exit from Gaza and a post-war governance plan, Blinken warned.

Earlier in the week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised that Israel could be “self-reliant” despite warnings from the United States.

Two doctors were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Palestinian town of Deir al-Balah, Gaza’s civil defense agency said on Sunday.

“The bodies of Dr. Muhammad Nimr Qazaat and his son, Dr. Youssef, were found (after being killed) following an Israeli raid on the town of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip,” the agency said.

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-controlled territory’s health ministry.

There were at least 63 deaths in the past 24 hours, a ministry statement said, bringing the death toll from the bombings and the Israeli offensive in Gaza to at least 35,034.

The UN and several humanitarian organizations consider the number of victims to be generally reliable.

Israel launched a ground operation in Gaza after Hamas and other militant groups launched an attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, on October 7. Last year. They also took 250 other people hostage.

Israeli media reports that the country’s troops are engaged in heavy fighting with armed Palestinian militants in the northern Gaza Strip.

THE Haaretz The newspaper reported that the Israeli army confirmed that forces from the 98th Brigade attacked Jabaliya on Sunday night.

Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari previously said military aircraft attacked targets in Jabaliya, a densely populated area that was once a refugee camp., after the civilian population was ordered to evacuate.

THE Israel Times said on Sunday that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had called for the departure of approximately 100,000 to 150,000 Palestinians from the Jabaliya area.

The militant organization Hamas, classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and Germany. And others cited violent clashes between its fighters and Israeli forces in the Jabaliya area, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) north of Gaza City.

United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) expressed “extreme concern” over calls for the evacuation of Jabaliya as well as Rafah in the south.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, calling for the return of hostages and an “increase” in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian territory.

“I reiterate my call, the call of the world, for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, for the unconditional release of all hostages and for an immediate increase in humanitarian aid. But a ceasefire will not be only a start. The road back will be long “The devastation and the trauma of this war,” Guterres said in a video speech at an international donor conference in Kuwait on Sunday.

Israeli strikes on Gaza continued on Sunday after the expansion of the Rafah evacuation order, despite international concerns over the Israeli military incursion into eastern areas of the city, cutting off a key passage for humanitarian aid.

“The war in Gaza is causing horrific human suffering, devastating lives, tearing families apart and leaving large numbers of people homeless, hungry and traumatized,” said Guterres.

dvv,rc/lo (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)