The Gaza Strip is still plunged into a catastrophic humanitarian situation on Wednesday, the day after deadly Israeli strikes against the territory and the United States' veto of a draft UN resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire.
Nearly a million and a half people, according to the UN, are massed in the city of Rafah, located in the south of the Palestinian territory against the closed border with Egypt, whose population has increased sixfold since the beginning of the war, on October 7, between Israel and Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced an upcoming offensive on the overpopulated city, targeted daily by Israeli strikes, in order to defeat the Palestinian Islamist movement in its "last bastion" and free the hostages held in Gaza.
This prospect worries the international community, while hopes of an end to the fighting are increasingly slim. The head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismaïl Haniyeh, based in Qatar, however, arrived in Cairo on Tuesday for new discussions on a truce with Egyptian officials.
At the same time, the United States vetoed a draft UN Security Council resolution that demanded an "immediate humanitarian" ceasefire.
Israel's primary supporter, Washington believes that this resolution would have endangered the delicate diplomatic negotiations on the ground to obtain a truce including a new release of hostages.
The Palestinian ambassador to the UN slammed a “dangerous” veto, with Hamas seeing it as a “green light” for Israel to carry out more “massacres”.
At least 15 people were killed Tuesday evening in "an Israeli bombardment which targeted a house in Deir al-Balah", in the center of the territory, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
Earlier, strikes targeted Khan Younes, a few kilometers north of Rafah, according to an AFP journalist, where Israeli soldiers were tracking Hamas fighters amid the ruins.
The NGO Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) said it was concerned about the situation at the Nasser hospital in Khan Younes, where it said medical staff and patients have been stranded since the Israeli army raid on February 15. “Deeply concerned” by the fate of these patients, MSF called “for their safe evacuation”.
"We don't know where to go," said Abdullah Al-Qadi, a 67-year-old man who lives in Zaytoun, a neighborhood in Gaza City in the north, also bombed: "We will die in our house and that is better than the humiliation that our relatives who have been displaced tell us about. People are humiliated and destroyed."
Reports from humanitarian organizations are increasingly alarming on the situation in the Gaza Strip, devastated and besieged by Israel, where 2.2 million people are threatened with famine, according to the UN.
Food and drinking water have become "extremely scarce" in Gaza, according to UN agencies which are concerned about an imminent "explosion" in the number of child deaths.
The World Food Program (WFP) on Tuesday once again suspended the distribution of its aid in the north of the territory, prey to “chaos and violence”.
This decision "means a death sentence and death for three quarters of a million people" and "will lead to an international catastrophe", reacted the press service of the Gaza government, calling on the WFP to "immediately reverse its disastrous decision ".
Humanitarian aid, still insufficient, enters the Gaza Strip mainly through Rafah via Egypt, but its delivery to the north is made almost impossible by the fighting and destruction.
“People in the north are dying of hunger and we here are dying because of the bombings,” said Ayman Abou Shammali, injured in a strike in Zawayda, in the center of the territory.
The war was sparked by an unprecedented attack launched on October 7 by Hamas commandos infiltrated into southern Israel. More than 1,160 people were killed, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.
In retaliation, Israel vowed to annihilate the Islamist movement, in power in Gaza since 2007, which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union.
The Israeli army launched an offensive which left 29,195 dead in Gaza, the vast majority civilians, according to the Hamas Ministry of Health.
According to Israel, 130 hostages are still being held in Gaza, 30 of whom are believed to have died, out of around 250 people kidnapped on October 7.
In New York, the United States presented an alternative project to the text to which it vetoed. While they had until now systematically opposed the use of the term "ceasefire", their version supports a ceasefire but not immediately, and under conditions.
No vote is planned at this stage on this project which also warns that "a large-scale ground offensive" on Rafah "should not take place under current conditions".
An offensive in Rafah would transform this city into a "cemetery", said Tuesday the head of the American branch of MSF, warning with other NGOs of the risk of famine there.
On Tuesday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro and his Bolivian counterpart Luis Arce accused Israel of "genocide" like Brazilian leader Lula who, on Sunday, drew a comparison between the Israeli offensive and the extermination of Jews by the Nazis.
Declared Monday "persona non grata" by the head of Israeli diplomacy Israel Katz and accused by him of a "serious anti-Semitic" attack, Lula was defended by his Minister of Foreign Affairs Mauro Vieira, who described them as "unacceptable" and “false” the statements of the Israeli minister.
Brett McGurk, US President Joe Biden's Middle East adviser, is traveling to the region this week - Wednesday in Egypt and Thursday in Israel - to speak with Israel about this offensive and try to advance the agreement on the hostages, according to the White House.
In Israel, families of hostages continue to pressure the government to secure the release of their loved ones.
“We are desperately calling on decision-makers in Israel and around the world to get involved in negotiations and bring them home immediately,” said Ofri Bibas, whose brother Yarden was kidnapped along with his wife and two children, on Tuesday. .
Medicines sent to Gaza as part of an agreement negotiated by Qatar and France have also reached hostages in need, according to Doha.