The war on the Gaza Strip has entered its 26th day, with no sign of a ceasefire. The Israeli army has intensified its attacks on the besieged enclave, killing more civilians and facing resistance from the Palestinian fighters. Nevertheless, US President Joe Biden has blamed Hamas for the crisis and expressed his support for Israel’s right to defend itself.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the death toll among the Palestinians as a result of the Israeli aggression has reached 8,850, including 8,796 in the Gaza Strip and 130 in the West Bank. More than 24,000 people have been injured, including 3,648 children and 2,290 women.
The Israeli army has admitted that it has lost 16 soldiers in the clashes with the Palestinian resistance, mainly the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. However, the Al-Qassam Brigades claimed that the number of casualties among the occupation forces was higher than what they had announced.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged that his forces suffered painful losses in Gaza, and Defence Minister Yoav Galant admitted that they suffered a severe blow in Gaza.
On Wednesday, the Israeli army committed another massacre in Jabalia refugee camp, where dozens of people were killed and wounded in an airstrike on a residential square in the Al-Faluga area. This was the second massacre in less than 24 hours in the camp after a similar attack on Tuesday killed at least 10 people.
In the West Bank, the Israeli army continued its raids and arrests, especially in Jenin and its camp, where armed clashes erupted and three Palestinians were killed by a drone strike.
Meanwhile, more than 300 foreign passport holders left Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt on Wednesday, and 76 injured people crossed the border to receive treatment at Egyptian hospitals. The director of the Gaza Crossings Authority, Hisham Adwa, said that hundreds of wounded, and perhaps thousands, are in urgent need of leaving the Strip to receive treatment abroad. He appealed to the Egyptian authorities to open the Rafah crossing permanently to allow the passage of humanitarian cases.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was “appalled” by reports that two-thirds of the victims in Gaza were women and children.
The United Nations also condemned the raids that targeted the Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday, killing dozens of Palestinians. “These are just the latest atrocities inflicted on the people of Gaza, as the fighting enters an even more terrifying phase, with increasingly horrific humanitarian consequences,” UN Humanitarian Coordinator Martin Griffiths said in a statement. He added: “The world seems unable and even reluctant to act,” stressing that “this situation cannot continue. We need urgent change.”
“Women, children, and men in Gaza are being starved, traumatised and bombed to death. We need to provide the necessities needed to keep Gazans alive, especially water, food, and fuel,” Griffiths said, warning that failure to act now regarding what is happening in Gaza will have consequences that extend beyond the borders of the region because this is a global crisis.
Meanwhile, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced that its fighters were able to destroy two Israeli army tanks in the area of the Agriculture School in Beit Hanoun, northeast of the Gaza Strip, with three “Yassin 105” shells.
The movement said that it bombed the “Ra’im” military base, known as the “Gaza Division Command Headquarters,” with a barrage of missiles. It added that its members were able to destroy four vehicles and kill an infantry force that was stationed inside a building in Beit Hanoun, northeast of the Gaza Strip. The brigades added that they also bombed Israeli forces entering the Juhr al-Dik area in the same area with mortar shells.
At the same time, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad movement, said that it bombed gatherings of Israeli army vehicles in the south and northwest of Gaza with dozens of “107” missiles and mortar shells.
In the Arab world, the Jordanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it had summoned its ambassador to Israel as an expression of “Jordan’s position rejecting the aggression on Gaza.” The ministry stated that the return of the Jordanian ambassador to Tel Aviv and the Israeli ambassador to Amman is conditional on Israel stopping its attacks on Gaza.
