The ceasefire in Gaza is over and Israel has resumed heavy bombardments. Now the offensive is targeting the south, where two million people are located.
War has resumed in Gaza, after a week of ceasefire and prisoner exchanges. On 1 December, Israel and the Palestinian radical organisation Hamas traded accusations over violations of the truce conditions and the conflict resumed. Rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli territory, intercepted by the Iron Dome defence system, while Israel resumed its heavy bombardments of Gaza, which since 7 October have already caused more than 15,000 deaths, a third of them children.
After ordering the evacuation of the northern Strip, now reduced practically to rubble, the Israeli offensive is now targeting the south, where the entire Palestinian population has gathered. And now has nowhere left to flee.
The ceasefire in the Gaza Strip had begun on 24 November. After more than a month and a half of Israeli bombardments on the territory, with a dramatic toll of more than 15,000 deaths, a third of them children, 61 journalists and more than 100 UN employees, Israel and Hamas had managed to reach an agreement to halt hostilities.
In recent days Hamas released 104 of the hostages it has held since 7 October, the day of its attack on Israeli territory that caused around 1,200 deaths. Israel in turn released 240 Palestinian political prisoners, drawn from women and children, who are generally held without formal charges or trial — the so-called administrative detention. The truce was supposed to last five days, but through intensive negotiations it was extended by further days, during which hundreds of humanitarian lorries also entered Gaza, providing some relief to a territory that for nearly two months has been under total Israeli siege. But the balance eventually broke down.
Israel accused Hamas of having violated the terms of the ceasefire by carrying out attacks on Israeli territory and failing to release all the women taken hostage under the agreed terms. Gaza, for its part, stressed that it was Israeli troops who had violated the agreements, having opened fire in Gaza on multiple occasions between 29 and 30 November, also killing two Palestinians — a version confirmed by the UN. This exchange of accusations and military fire thus brought the ceasefire to an end. On 1 December Hamas launched rockets towards Israeli territory, while Israel resumed heavy bombardments of Gaza, striking more than 200 targets. Within just 24 hours, at least 170 Palestinians were killed and more than 500 wounded, according to Gaza's health ministry.
Throughout nearly two months of attacks on the Gaza Strip, Israeli action has concentrated on the north. The area has effectively been emptied of its population, which has moved southwards, towards the border with Egypt. Around two million people are now massed there, while the northern Strip has become a cross between a pile of rubble and a ghost town.
Now, however, with the end of the ceasefire, a new front of the Israeli offensive appears to be opening up, this time targeting the south. In recent hours, Israeli leaflets have rained down on Khan Yunis, the main southern city, warning the population to move even further south, towards Rafah, to escape the bombardments. In reality, during those same hours Israel bombed both Khan Yunis and Rafah, demonstrating that there are no safe places in the Gaza Strip and that evacuation warnings often do not even allow enough time to evacuate. But the real problem is that a further evacuation southward for the two million Palestinians is no longer possible, because the Gaza Strip has come to an end and they are already at the border with Egypt.
Israel believes that some Hamas leaders have taken refuge in the southern part of the Strip, in particular Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa. The offensive on that portion of territory can be explained in this way, given that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated in recent hours that the objective remains "the elimination of Hamas". But the civilian cost of the bombardments in an area with such a high concentration of displaced people, living through an extreme humanitarian crisis, risks being far worse than that of recent weeks.
Israel has released a map with a QR code in which the Gaza Strip has been divided into dozens of districts: the aim is to issue evacuation orders in Arabic to the Palestinian population from one district to another depending on the targets of its bombardments. A chessboard in constant motion that fails to account for one thing: moving two million people like pawns across a territory where infrastructure has collapsed and internet access is limited as a result of the Israeli offensive itself is a utopia.